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The Current Transcript for April 26, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I am as low as possible. I aim for obese woman, ugly women, ideally ugly and obes. You know, I am for the bottom of the barrel because you know I realise that I am ugly.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: He's a young man, a member of the Incel Movement caught on tape in a documentary expressing misogyny and self loathing on a love love shy online platform. Since the discovery of an Incel reference posted on the Facebook page of the man charged with killing 10 people with a van in Toronto on Monday, the troubling ideology of the cell movement is under new scrutiny. Some see it as a dangerous extremist movement to crack down on others see alienated and isolated men in need of therapy. The debate over what to do about it all has begun and you will hear some of that in half an hour. Also today if you are a fan of Friday Night Lights you might already know not to mess with taxes.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Here's to God and football and 10 years from now Street. Good friends living large in Texas. Texas forever.

VOICE 2: Texas forever.

AMT: Texas is large. It's politics awash in presidential assassination and habitation. It has such an aversion to government that its legislature only sits every other year. It's awash in shopping centers and has an insatiable appetite for pickup trucks. It's an economic and demographic power house with influence that stretches right across the United States. And it is home to journalist Lawrence Wright who goes on his own quest for the soul of the Lone Star State. Hear him in an hour, but we begin with this.

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I confer upon you, David Takayoshi Suzuki title and degree Doctor of Science honoris causa.

AMT: David Suzuki has 29 honorary degrees but anger is mounting over the University of Alberta's intention to given what would be his 30th honorary degree. I am AnnaMaria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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David Suzuki should not be celebrated in Alberta, says former Dragons' Den star

Guests: Joe Avrai, W.Brett Wilson

AMT: The awarding of honorary degrees is generally a feel good affair an opportunity to publicly honor someone's accomplishments while still a little celebrity shine for the university. But the feelings are far from good at the University of Alberta right now amidst its plans to give David Suzuki an honorary doctorate of science in June. For some Albertans the co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation and the host of CBC's the nature of things is public enemy number one for his vocal denunciation of the Alberta oil and gas industry. With the province warring with B.C. over the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion, they say the timing could not be worse. And some of those critics are at the University of Alberta itself the dean of the schools of business and engineering have denounced the honour. Corporate donors are also crying foul. Kim Moody is the director of Canadian tax advisory firm Moody's Gartner Tax Law. It committed one hundred thousand dollars over five years to the university's law school. It has now terminated the left early.

SOUNDCLIP

We've been watching this story ever since it was announced because it did bother us even in our firm. We had terminated our gift prior to Mr. Turpin's op ed yesterday, but the tone deafness of the response that was just icing on the cake though we made the right decision. To suggest that donors like us are trying to limit academic freedom and freedom of speech- It has absolutely nothing to do with that. We just simply couldn't live with the fact that a prominent university is somehow glorifying and honouring a person that is trying to destroy our province.

AMT: Mr Turpin to whom he referred is David Turpin the president of the University of Alberta. We asked him to respond to the criticism he's hearing from Mr. Moody and other donors.

SOUNDCLIP

I am aware there are many people out there frustrated and angered by this decision. I would ask them just to remember that there are students that are part of university, and by standing up and punishing university by withholding donations and support, it affects students every day. It affects the co op placements. It affects their ability to access scholarships. And these students are the future of our province an so the future of our country. And I would encourage all members of the community to recognise that universities are absolutely fundamental to the development of our society, that they are the engines of social, cultural and economic development. And our students need to be supported.

AMT: According to my next guest the university's decision to honour David Suzuki will have a lasting negative implication. W. Brett Wilson is an entrepreneur who spent his career in the oil industry first as an engineer and then as a financier. You might also know him as a former dragon on CBC's Dragon Den. W. Brett Wilson joins us from Calgary, hello.

W. BRETT WILSON: Good morning.

AMT: What do you think of the University of Alberta's plan to award this honorary degree to David Suzuki?

W. BRETT WILSON: Misguided, misdirected, mispurposed and so I'm completely opposed to it. But what I really love about it is it's woken up a movement and that movement is historically called the silent majority.

AMT: So what are you hearing from other Albertans about this?

W. BRETT WILSON: Well this is regular people, everyday people, going 'Why would the guy who has been flagging us, as a society, as a community-' and I am talking about western Canada and the energy industry and the resources industry that runs. Quite frankly the engine of growth for Canada. This is a group of people who'd been attacked, for two decades now, by David Suzuki. We've never heard a compliment once. It's all has been continuous inbound barrage of abuse over various factors relative to our so-called fossil fuel industry. Then people were fed up. They just said enough is enough. This kind of celebration is one thing to tolerate him crossing the border into a province, or to even live in Canada, but it's another to be celebrating someone like this especially under the false guise of academic freedom.

AMT: Well I want to play another clip for you from the University of Alberta President David Turpin. He addressed concerns that this controversy reveals the extent to which oil and gas interests may hold sway over policy and decision making at the University of Alberta.

SOUNDCLIP

By defending this decision we are actually defending the autonomy of university. We have seen the most enduring institutions of western civilisation. They have always stood a little bit apart from their founders, and have said we need the freedom to make decisions and to pursue knowledge and truth independent of the funding sources. Members of our community have an expectation that we provide an environment where ideas can run free. We caught controversy. We don't conform to the current norms that are put upon us by any member of the community.

AMT: W. Brett Wilson what do you make of that?

W. BRETT WILSON: I find it amusing when people make comments about corporate America, corporate Canada, the corporate Calgary, the oil and gas industry corporate being upset. This has nothing to do with corporations what so ever. A whole bunch of individuals in Alberta voters, taxpayer,s contributors, parents and uncles of the children that he speaks of that go to this university are upset, and suggest that he needs autonomy for the purpose of honorary doctorate is so disconnected from what the common man believes the purpose of a university is, which is to educate. And of course to lead in terms of research and other initiatives in terms of forwarding our planet. But this thought that academia gets to live in this little tower all by itself and just in bound money continues to drizzle out of the clouds and they're funded for ever. This is reputational. This is very core to the reputation of the university. And as a choice many people are saying I wouldn't send my kid there now. And there's a lot of alumni- This is about individuals. This is about people. It's got nothing to do with corporations. So to try and flag the doner world, no they've upset their own alumni, their own staff. There is nothing about academic freedom here.

AMT: At the same time Moody's Gartner has withdrawn their remaining amount of its donation to the University of Alberta received but other people, like there are donors who are withdrawing. What impact does that have?

W. BRETT WILSON: It's going to be painful. It was interesting that he said people should be aware of this affecting the students. Well, dah! Wouldn't the president and the university realize that first? There's just no correlation, no connection to the community. To think that they should be able to slap a donor and then say: 'Oh yes, but this is in the interest of the students that we're honouring David Suzuki', makes no sense. And it's just a common man saying enough is enough. They've now just woken. They are not just raged. They've engaged.

AMT: So why? Why now? It's one honorary degree. This is emblematic of something else, is it?

W. BRETT WILSON: For sure but let's remember, it's emblematic of a university that's been a key contributor to our community and the Albertan community. I've heard from the University of Alberta friends of the U of A, of lecturers at U of A, dozens and dozens of times. The push back is driven entirely by celebrating a guy who is an antagonist and of course it doesn't help that Trans-Mountains on the front and all of the other issues what we call the falsitudes. You know the Suzuki Foundation has been funded by U.S. interests going back to you know almost 20 years that we can see, for the sole purpose of creating a moratorium on oil and gas. It's enough is enough. This is called the straw that broke the camel's back. Some would say this isn't that big a deal. And it's not. I don't care if he gets a degree or not. I do care that we've woken up a bunch of people who said you know what, we're not happy.

AMT: So this is directly related to the Kinder Morgan fight that's going on right now as well.

W. BRETT WILSON: Well you tell me who stands in front of the gates of the Kinder Morgan. It means David Suzuki. Elizabeth May. It's 20 years 30 grand standers looking to draw attention. Well they've got the attention they were looking for.

AMT: It's interesting. I know you were tweeting overnight because a group called Dogwood BC just got federal funding for a summer job position that involves helping to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline. And you tweeted: '@gmbutts'- which Gerald Butts in the PMO - '& @liberal_party have given summer student grants to @dogwoodBC to intern to PROTESTS #Kinder Morgan and #Transmountain. Do we still Hang for treason?'

W. BRETT WILSON: Well the comment is obvious. I mean there's some people can't believe you're threatening to bring people. Well the concept of treason is people who are working against our national interests. It's getting so tiresome to see the stupidity of even government now finding with its Dogwood in particular for the sole purpose of undermining what's a federally approved project. There is nothing about that project that hasn't met all the required compliance and this is a project that would have been completed and onstream in any other nation in the world. But Canada [unintelligible]. Yes, I'm calling it treason because these acts in self-interest, self-indulgent, it's fully on the tiller that it's being waged that's getting all this attention. Enough is enough.

AMT: So what do you think should happen at the University of Alberta?

W. BRETT WILSON: They have to do a whole lot more. I think those three outcomes one is that they are going to give Suzuki his degree. I think are going to proceed with that. They have to. They've dug themselves into a trench in a ditch. Two, they're going to suffer the indignation of their donor and it's their support community. The word donor, it is the people who go to the university that get hired to hire students. It's the people who make a special trip like myself to lecture to the students. I mean there's a whole bunch of engagement and community it isn't just about money. So it's reputational. And Number Three, I think Turpin will ultimately lose his job over this because it's going to be so badly mishandled in the eyes of the internal affairs at the University.

AMT: What do you want people in the rest of Canada to know about this?

W. BRETT WILSON: I want people do know that it's time to think about what's in our national interest. Suzuki celebrate regionalism in nimbyism in ways that make no sense no sense to a nation. We need nation building now more than ever.

AMT: W. Brett Wilson thanks for your time this morning.

W. BRETT WILSON: Appreciate it, Anna Maria.

AMT: W. Brett Wilson is an entrepreneur who has spent his career working in the oil industry. We reached him in Calgary. We did ask David Suzuki for an interview. He was not available. Our next guest has concerns over what this controversy says about academic freedom at universities in Alberta. Joe Arvai why is the director of the Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability at the University of Calgary, until he began raising concerns about how much influence the company had at the centre. He now works at the University of Michigan where he is the Max McGraw professor of sustainable enterprise. We have reached Joe Arvai in Ann Arbor Michigan. Hello.

JOE AVRAI: Good morning how are you?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know what you are thinking as you were listening to my last guest?

JOE AVRAI: You know it I think the comments we just heard I think are emblematic of the lack of maturity that exists in Alberta, but not just in Alberta and other places as well with respect to the relationship between corporations, different kinds of donors, philanthropies and the academic community. I think the kind of rhetoric we heard from Mr. Wilson just now, some of the rhetoric we're hearing from donors, even some of the rhetorical flourishes used by people like David Suzuki I think are hurting institutions like the University of Alberta and ultimately are harmful for the public trust in Canada.

AMT: Well I mean even the deans of the Faculty of Engineering and the University's Business School have been publicly criticized as critical of the decision. They say it's a betrayal of the U of A's long history with the energy and resource industries. What do you mean by lack of maturity?

JOE AVRAI: You know I think that there is an expectation amongst a lot of philanthropists a lot of donors that what they're really buying into is the credibility of the university in return for a reputation for themselves. That was certainly the case, in my opinion, with respect to the scenario that you talked about at the University of Calgary. I think we see a lot of deals like that happening at universities like University of Calgary, at the University of Alberta as well now with the donors pulling back the funds as a result of the Suzuki honorary degree. I think ultimately universities should be viewed as places where research and development occurs and the public trust. That means that oftentimes things things will be controversial as universities take on projects initiatives, educational activities that try to balance social, environmental and economic interests. At different times in that equation you're going to have some people very happy for example on the economic side, at other times quite absuupset rd on the economic side. If you look at the long term trajectory of a university I think that those kinds of conflicts are part and parcel of that R and D mission in the public interest. So for a donor to stand up now over one honorary degree because they feel like that's somehow harmful to their interests or to the interest of other stakeholders that might be engaged, I think is it reflects a lack of maturity and a lack of understanding of the role of the university in a place like Alberta or in any part of the state for that matter.

AMT: You were offerd a position to lead a new research center at the University of Calgary, a centre that was funded by named after the energy company Enbridge. When you accepted that position what did you imagine the relationship between Enbridge and the university would be?

JOE AVRAI: When I accepted that position it was pitched to me as a donation from a company that I was interested in business and sustainability, that they would provide funding to a center to do research and development work, to educate students about the complexities of business and sustainability. But they would ultimately keep their hands free of dictating what the senator could do, who the Senate could bring in to speak, how the Senate could spend its money which I think ultimately is what academic freedom is all about. I think David Turpin but not only David Turpin other university presidents would agree that when funding comes in ultimately trust is placed in the university to manage those funds in a way that's in line with its mission. Indeed that's why partners like companies and philanthropists and NGOs are giving them money in the first place because they believe in the ethics and the integrity of the institution, and by engaging with an institution like that and they sort of flag themselves as also having integrity. But that was my expectation going in that it would be that kind of relationship but it's very typical of the relationships we have here at the University of Michigan. Ultimately that isn't how that shook out in that case.

AMT: You resigned before the center even opened.

JOE AVRAI: I did indeed. I certainly raised a lot of objections about how the company in that particular situation was asking us to behave. I was under pressure from my dean to conform to the donors wishes in that particular case. And you know I resigned but let's say that I was made uncomfortable and off in my position that I ultimately had little choice but to walk away.

AMT: You know we did reach out to the University of Calgary for a response to this story but we did not hear back from it. How did they respond to your concerns?

JOE AVRAI: You know I think it's public record the university believes that they they did nothing wrong in that particular case, that they were above board in their dealings with the donor when it came to the Enbridge Center, that there is nothing kind of weird about that deal and they basically, to use Mr. Wilson's terms of dug in and then basically claim their innocence.

AMT: You have corporate partners now though in your academic work at the University of Michigan.

JOE AVRAI: We certainly do and I think that's what's really interesting about this and that goes back to my comments about a level of maturity in these kinds of relationships. We work in close partnership with companies like General Motors, Ford, Amazon, Dow Chemical for example. I think Dow Chemical might be the most apropos example in this case. This is a company that works in an industry that a lot of a lot of people around the world view with a great deal of skepticism at the same time. I think Dow is doing tremendous work on the inside to try and improve their business practices, so they'd better balance social economic and environmental considerations. They have people in their corporate offices, VPs, executives who have received training in all manner of business in sustainability disciplines at universities like University of Michigan, like Harvard, Universitis with great credibility and fantastic reputations so that they can do their jobs better. Now that said you know I think that there are times where we do things at the University or say things at the University or come up with the research results at the university that make their lives more difficult, but they don't respond by threatening to pull their donations. It's a two way street. You know we deal with our corporate partners here with a tremendous amount of respect. So Dow, I think, completely understands in the case of our relationship with them, what it is that we're here to do. And when we talk about the work that we're doing, especially in those cases where it might make our partners like any of the companies I mentioned are uncomfortable, we do it in a way that is attentive to the process as we followed that got us to the point of delivering those results in the first place. We work with integrity through process and come up with results that maybe you're uncomfortable, that I think nevertheless carries the day and we don't have the same kind of pushback that you're seeing today in Alberta.

AMT: So just before I let you go I really briefly then, you see no no problem with corporate donations to universities. They don't have to influence the research.

JOE AVRAI: Not at all. I think that this happens all the time. I think corporations - but not only corporations individual philanthropists, nongovernmental organizations, governments are giving monies to universities to do all manner of things. I think that's entirely within the realm of reason for a university and within the rights of the donor.

AMT: We have to leave it there, Joe. Thank you so much.

JOE AVRAI: Thank you, Anna Maria. Have a great day.

AMT: Joe Avrai Max McGraw processor sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise in Ann Arbor Michigan. Stay with us. The news is next and then we're back. This is The Current.

Violent misogyny found in 'incel' is a form of terrorism, says author

Guests: Archy Mann, Rebecca Solnit , Sam Louie

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come the mythology of Texas stretches far beyond its borders and for Lawrence Wright, deep into his DNA. I'll speak with a Pulitzer Prize winning author of God Save Texas. But first inside Incel.

[sc].

[Chanting]

AMT: The sounds of a vigil in Toronto on Tuesday night honouring the victims of the horrific van attack. Ten people are dead, 14 more injured. And while there is still much we do not know about the suspect and his possible motives. A post on his Facebook page has exposed a troubling online phenomenon. It refers to the term Incel which means involuntary celibate. It's a term used in online forums where men gather to discuss their feelings of isolation and anger toward women. So-called in cells were the subject of the 2011 documentary shy boys IRL.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I don't have a job. I am ugly. So my value right now is zero.

VOICE 2: Have you approached many women?

VOICE 1: Oh many.

VOICE 2: And what was the result?

VOICE 1: Rejection 100 percent of the time. I would start talking to a girl and immediately should give me [unintelligible] signals she would pull out her cell phone, just starts texting her friends and just hope I would go away. I don't approach that much anymore because you know I've had over 1000 rejections in real life, 2000 rejections online. That's three thousand rejections total.

VOICE 2: Did you count them really?

VOICE 1: I'm approximating. That's not a real word - ask the question again. I aim as low as possible. I aim for obese women, ugly women, ideally ugly and obese. You know I aim for the bottom of the barrel because you know I realise that I'm ugly. Pretty boy get women, like you're some guy. See he gets women, because - See, I knew the moment I looked at him that he's not Incel. I'm jealous.

AMT: Comments by Incels often go further than frustration at being rejected by women. They can expose a brutal and violent hatred of women. The attack in Toronto was not the first to be linked to the Incel subculture. In 2014 Elliot Rodger killed six people and wounded 14 others near the campus of the University of California Santa Barbara. He also identified as Incel and described the murders as an act of revenge. I'm joined by three people with insights about Incel and why some of these men turned violent? What can be done to prevent that? Archy Mann is a journalist with Extra, an LGBTQ publication in Toronto. He's been researching and writing about Incel ideology. He's in our Toronto studio. Sam Louie is a psychotherapist and a columnist with Psychology Today. We've reached him in Seattle. And Rebecca Solnit is a writer, historian and activist in San Francisco. She's the author of many books including Men Explain Things to Me. Hello everyone and welcome.

REBECCA SOLNIT: Good morning.

SAM LOUIE: Good morning.

ARCHY MANN: Happy to be here.

AMT: Archy, let's start with you. Just in a nutshell, Incel ideology. What is it?

ARCHY MANN: So as you said Incel stands for involuntary celibate and it's a subculture of people online mostly overwhelmingly heterosexual young men who get together, and essentially talk about their desire to inflict violence upon women. They talk about their feelings of resentment and hatred towards women and sexually successful men. So that clip that we heard earlier that's not very representative of what Incel communities online are like today. There's been a progressive radicalization over the last few years especially since the Isla Vista killing that Elliot Rodger's perpetrated four years ago.

AMT: And so where do they gather online? What platforms are they using?

ARCHY MANN: ,So Four Train is quite a popular one the r9k board particularly are Incels, the Sub Reddit was quite popular until it was shut down back in November for making threats against women and for a lot of violence on there. And now they've moved to different sub Reddits. There's also forums and discord channels and a variety of other kind of locations online where a lot of these young men gather to kind of fantasize about these violent thoughts.

AMT: And what do we know about who they are?

ARCHY MANN: We know that for the most part they're heterosexual cisgender young men.

AMT: Twenties? Late teens?

ARCHY MANN: Exactly, late teens, even high school, early 20s. A lot of the ones, a lot of folks self-identify as programmers are in stem kind of fields. A lot of them are interested in video games. A lot of them also self-identify as either being on the autism spectrum or having Asperger's. It's men who feel that they are socially isolated. I think what's really kind of terrifying is that a lot of them are quite quite young. So we are talking about high school here. Well before - you know a lot of their peers are necessarily having sex. They you had a kind of skewed view on the sexual habits of their peers and other people.

AMT: Rebecca Solnit what did you think then when you first heard there could be a link between the Toronto attack and Incels?

REBECCA SOLNIT: I wish I could say I was surprised. And I wish we talked about misogyny as a kind of terrorism or hate group or something like that, but it wasn't surprising at all because misogynist violence is so pervasive now. You know as Kim Walls killers just sentenced, as we wait to hear the jury verdict on Bill Cosby, as we deal with so many other stories like this one you know in one or another stories of hatred and violence against women.

AMT: So what do you think is behind the attitudes of these young men?

REBECCA SOLNIT: You know I think that there are some very peculiar Internet culture specific things about it, but I think the general hatred of women and the idea that sex is a commodity that men are out there to get, and more is better and this sense of entitlement of having a right to women's bodies which the Incel murderer in Isla Vista four years ago strongly believed in is really pervasive. And you know this is kind of an intensification of misogynist culture, patriarchal culture with its entitlement and its rage.

AMT: Sam louie how often do you see men who identify as Incels in your psychotherapy practice?

SAM LOUIE: Well nobody has identified as being Incel per se, but just this week when this happened one of my clients came in and he just brought this up on his own accord and said you know about 10 years ago that could have been me. I think I have those find that can really destructive feelings and fights raging through me and even when it occurred or the day after when I saw him, he said I could still sympathize with the killer.

AMT: A lot of people have felt rejected. What's behind the feelings of real anger and fantasizing violence?

SAM LOUIE: Yes. So I specialise in porn addiction which runs the gamut from romantic intimacy disorders so to speak and Rebecca touched on it briefly. I think part of what happens is there's a sense of entitlement and objectification. I was actually working in Los Angeles when Elliot Rodger went on his rampage and went back to take a look at some of his quotes the other day. He said here's one quote: 'I was desperate to have the life I knew I deserved, a life of being wanted by attractive girls, a life of sex and love'. Now if that doesn't sound like entitlement and objectification, I don't know what would be.

AMT: And you know you've written that shame plays a role into this. How so?

SAM LOUIE: Yes I believe there could be a confluence of so many different areas of shame coming together because this is not the first time in history when people have been rebuffed by the opposite sex. That's happened [unintelligible]. This is not the first time we've had socially awkward people. This is not the first time we've had people who could be considered - not hat awkward but even [unintelligible] has ostracised the people who are considered the nerd subculture and involved in video games as comic books and so on and so forth. But what I think could be shifting is this may be the first time that all three separate identities could be felt internally from the person occurring at the same time. So there's a lot of burgeons shaming that's occurring in some of these. So in the hockey world the word war craft, and I am being a little stereotypical. But even there among most Dunkers because it's an online live gaming situation people are always making references to sex and so on and so forth. So these you know those who feel like they're entitled to that first and foremost and they're not these relationships, they may feel that deeper sting of being a virgin. I mentioned in one of my blogs there's also a a shift too, as recently as two decades ago. Very few people were being shamed for being celibate. The societal or culture shifted so much that if you're not having sex by your 20s there's this feeling, even the most of my clients, something must be wrong with them, they must be defective to the core themselves. s.

AMT: Arhcy Mann Listening to you nodding his head. Archy what are you thinking? What do you want to add here?

ARCHY MANN: I think everything that we're talking about that Rebecca and Sam have mentioned is totally correct, but I think the one piece that's missing is that yes misogyny has been kind of has been eternal and there have been isolated folks for a long time and the sexual culture has also changed. But what has really pushed a lot of these young men to the edge and willing to really go this far is the fact that they're finding each other in online communities and they're radicalising each other. So over the last 20 years you've had a number of different online male oriented subcultures develop and many of them are obsessed with kind of sex and women. So whether that's Pickup Artists, the Red Pill and Seduction Community, men's rights activists and progressively over the years these different groups have branched off and become more and more anti-feminist and more and more extreme. And at the most extreme end you have this kind of politicised misogynist Incel subculture which is essentially nihilistic. They literally talk about taking the black pill as opposed to you know in the matrix metaphor of taking the blue pill or the red pill. They say 'No it's neither of those. We're taking the black pill, embracing nihilism. There's nothing out there for us,' and they encourage other others to kind of have a race to the bottom of just horridness.

AMT: And you use the word radicalism because you put them in the same category as other extremists that we have been tracking.

ARCHY MANN: I think that is the right way to think about them. A lot of these young men- are a lot of the characteristics and the path to this kind of extremism is very similar. So I think what you would find amongst say kind of young men who are getting involved in say ISIS propaganda or things like that. Not all of them are obviously going to engage in any kind of violence, neither are all of the people who are watching ISIS videos on telegram or something like that. But a subset of them are going to kind of increasingly get more and more self-radicalised and radicalise each other. You know the difference between this and say ISIS is that there is not kind of an organized group right. There isn't a leader, there isn't like a kind of hierarchy or structure. But there are these like loose networks and they are finding each other. And that I think is really the missing point of how they can take this kind of violent misogyny and politicise it and try and create terror, although that's not new either. Obviously there's Marc Lepine in Canada.

AMT: And who actually told the women to get to one side before he started shooting. Rebecca Solnit what are you thinking?

REBECCA SOLNIT: Oh so many things. I agree with both of the speakers. It's definitely something very peculiar to the Internet and its way of kind of entrenching people deeper in their bubbles of prejudice whether it's conspiracy theories or the alt right in the U.S. or this misogyny. And part of what's sad is that from what I gathered about this guy from what I know about Elliot Rodger and I follow the Isla Vista massacre very closely. I knew the family of one of the victims. It wasn't so far away in California. There also was a sense of conventional values gone rancid. You know this is sort of capitalist sex. Sex is a commodity I have to get I am impoverished without, a sense of conformity. I want to be normal. I can't be normal. You know with Elliot Rodger's. His values were so conventional he wanted status, power, prestige and admiration and he wanted it through the Consumer Products; cars, women and eventually reach for the ones that were available including a gun.

AMT: So you talk about capitalist sex because it's another commodity.

REBECCA SOLNIT: Yes. When you see it in a much more broad way a misogynist, culture, sex is the thing that women have or are and that men get and that you want to acquire as much as possible and you sort of like some sort of wolf of Wall Street. You have these hostile acquisition strategies and underhanded strategies. The Pickup Artist which is another world that Elliot Rodger was in is about how to trick and bully and psychologically manipulate women into being sexually available. And there's just a tremendous sadness about all of that because it regards sex as a commodity but women as the enemy. And there's a funny way in which women are both the bodies you want to have access to and the gate keepers standing between you and the access that you have to overcome. And anything resembling love, affection, joy, pleasure some of the kind of nicer versions of what it means to be intimate with someone, to be passionate, to be in love or to make love is just so far removed from this. It's such a sadly distorted version of what sex is. And you know I have since we have an expert here that overlap with what porn tells people sex is would be interesting to hear about.

AMT: Go ahead Sam.

SAM LOUIE: Yes thank you for that because I think we have here is what you mentioned tackles what you just said is the definition of masculinity has been so stereotypical in the minds of some of my clients. They feel they have to be this [unintelligible]. One client literally had a dream where he fell his ex-girl he liked ended up liking a man who was nine feet tall and he's a little shorter because he's Asian. And there's another component there, the ethnic piece of feeling ostracise there. But even regardless of that point, just a sense that he is not masculine enough and how he views masculinity. There needs to be a redefinition because all they see is sex equals masculinity, everything leading up to it. The stages of courtship how you notice them. How do you attract somebody. How do you flirt. I even asked point blank. Do you know when a girl is flirting with you? He stared at me, blankly. Do you know how to flirt? [unintelligible] It could be physical. It could just be the way you laughed. It could be the seduction in your voice. It could be a wink and just point and so everything leading up to the romance. Learning how to you feel, just playful such, [unintelligible] that maybe some of us have learned in middle school and high school. All of that is pushed aside and all what I see are young men who just want sex just for sex sake. There's nothing about the emotional connection into the scene.

AMT: Well I'm going to interrupt you there because I want to play a clip that speaks to that. And this is Sarah Guardephe. She's the woman who made the film the Shy Boys. She spoke to several Incel men and said most seemed harmless. But when we talked to her she gave us an example of someone who scared her.

SOUNDCLIP

I can tell you a little bit about the one person I did talk to that was I [unintelligible]. He showed up at the last show forum and kind of proposed this idea that he would take the money that he had earned from his business and head down to Mexico and start what he called an Incel house. I guess essentially purchase wives for these Incel men who would join them. I ended up interviewing him. His stance is that all American women deserved to raped. During the interview he did repeatedly say that I deserved to be raped and look what I was wearing and etc... etc. He is clearly like unhinged and mentally unwell.

AMT: Rebecca you want to respond to that?

REBECCA SOLNIT: I want wanted to respond to something that got said about you know the equation of Asian and not that tall as somebody who's dated a few quite tall and handsome Asian men. But yeah that theory is just you know it's been in the room for a long time and I just hope that in talking about this we understand what's peculiar about this culture and the other speakers have been very hopeful about it. But also what's in some sense pervasive and normal about it that there's a lot of misogyny, a lot of objectification of women. And objectification of women and violence against women is the president of the United States right now. And that this is present in the culture in a lot of ways as are mass killings in North America. You know we're still reeling from the waffle house shooting a few days ago, the parkland killing by somebody who also mentioned Elliot Rodger and seemed to be Incel world in some way. The Parkland shooting also known as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Valentine's Day. So I think that there are some things that are very particular to this culture but sort of rage and entitlement and misogyny you know are everywhere in this culture. This is an extreme version but not an exceptional one.

REBECCA SOLNIT: Well Archy has made the point. He's connected that to the extremism we see in the people who follow ISIS in white supremacist movements where actually we have laws, that people actually track this law enforcement is because this is massage any because this is about women does this not get the same attention. Do we need to rethink how we look at this? Are we talking therapy or are we talking a need for something else as well?

REBECCA SOLNIT: You know I think both. And that understanding how the Internet feeds this how the culture feeds is and but also treating it as a human rights issue that women live under this threat of violence, and it has a huge impact on our lives. And you know it is a kind of terrorism that in a sense has been normalised because of who gets to tell the story and because it's so pervasive.

AMT: Archy.

ARCHY MANN: I do you think what Rebecca was saying there about how normal this is is exactly true. You see that on online spaces especially we don't often take the sort of everyday but pretty virulent misogyny in on Twitter on Facebook very seriously. But that is part of the kind of escalation of rhetoric and the escalation of violent imagery that a lot of people are engaging in. And when you talk about the similarities between this kind of you know Incel extremist say versus somebody in ISIS or white supremacist, you also have to remember that the number one kind of indicator, the number one red flag for any kind of terrorist is almost always domestic violence. That's the one thing that connects almost all of these men regardless of their ideology. So there is something to that. And even within the broader context of say white supremacy and the Alt right it's often these misogynistic kind of subcultures online that is the entryway for a lot of these young men into different parts of those extremist elements whether it be neo Nazi ism or other forms of extremism.

AMT: We have to leave it there but thank you all of you for weighing in and connecting some of these dots. Thank you. We have been speaking with Rebecca Solnit. She's a writer, historian activist, author of many books including Men Explain Things to Me. She's in San Francisco. Sam Louie is a psychotherapist who has treated men who identify as Incels. He reached him in Seattle. And Archy Mann is a journalist with Extra, an LGBTQ publication in toronto. He's been researching and writing about the Incel phenomenon. He joined me in our Toronto studio. Let us know what you think of this conversation and the kinds of things our guests have been saying. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us. We're talking Texas in just a moment.

[Music]

Lawrence Wright on why Texas matters to America's future

Guest: Lawrence Wright

AMT: Hi I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Everybody thought I had a duster. Y'all thought I'll spindletop Burke and Bernett was all the oil there was, didn't you? Well I'm here to tell you it ain't boy. It's here and there ain't a damn thing you going to do about it. My well came in big, so big big and there's more down there and there's bigger bigger wells. I'm rich. I'm a rich boy.

AMT: Well that was the iconic James Dean and the 1956 film Giant although they could have just as easily called the movie Texas. Its story line of a poor boy finding an oil gusher and becoming a billionaire, is classic Texas lore. Just like the gunslinger, the Alamo, right wing politics and the murder of a president. Lawrence Wright as a Texan who also happens to be a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist he explores the past and present people and politics of his home state in his new book God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State. Lawrence Wright is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello welcome back.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: It's great to be here again.

AMT: Well it's so interesting to see what you've written and there were times when I laughed out loud because you've gotten a little bit of satire in there to. Did Texan like the mythology of the state when they see it depicted in Hollywood movies?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Oh when giant first came out, the book by Edna Ferber, they hate it. You know they felt so demeaned and because she had such a perceptive way of creating these stereotypes. The huge rancher that Rock Hudson was where you had a ranch the size of several states and Elizabeth Taylor played the kind of civilising Easterner that comes down and so shocked by the rough manners. And then there was you know the Hispanics they worked on the ranch and they did all the work and got very little pay. And then there were course James Dean who in the movie played the hired hand who strikes oil and becomes one of the richest men in the state. All those things you know Texans were kind of horrified by the stereotypes. But when the novel came out but then when the movie came out they couldn't stop watching it.

AMT: You say that perhaps Texas really is a place that exists more fully in film than in real life. What do you mean by that?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well you know Hollywood really created Texas in the sense of the myth that we associate with the state. And you know they were you know giant was certainly an example. A lot of them were Howard Hawks and John Ford Westerns shot in Arizona parkland that stood in for Texas and Texas which represented this kind of existential like Samaria or Judea. But without God you know as you know man against the elements, good versus evil, the Gunslinger is you know going into you know protecting your town and against the hordes of raiders and- all of these things were archetypal. They really slipped into the imagination. And yeah I remember when I was a young man I was teaching in Cairo and I would go horseback riding out of the stables that were by the pyramids. And I was a city boy I was not much of a cowboy but they found out I was from Texas and they brought out this horse. Two men leading this rearing stallion with his nostrils flaring and he said 'Oh Texas' - they call me - 'You know we have a horse for you.' Obviously. They thought I was John Wayne but that horse took me almost to Libya before I was able to turn him around.

AMT: Well the interesting thing is you still got on the horse right, because you're a Texan. You couldn't resist.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: But I did really feel the gap between being a real Texan and being the Texan of their imagination,

AMT: Texas as an economic and demographic giant has largely gone under the radar. Give us an idea of the clout it has in the United States.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well for one thing the economy is a little larger than that of Canada. And you know there are 29 million Texans right now and we're expected to double by the year 2050 at which time we will be the size- about the size of California New York combined, which is kind of you know awe inspiring because it's growing so fast already. It's very difficult to keep up with the influx of population. This is good you know I mean there are a lot of people are coming for the jobs as you know the economy is extremely robust and has been for decades, but it has vast political implications depending on which direction Texas decides to go. It's the largest red state. And California is the largest blue state. California's largest state has 55 electoral votes which is how we determine our presidents. But it will not add any more on the next census nor has it added any since 2003. Texas has 39 electoral votes and will get four more. New York the third largest state has been losing population and electoral votes almost since the Truman administration. So Texas really is the future.

AMT: And even in things like education. Right? What is it, one tenth of all children live in Texas.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: That's right

AMT: In terms of textbooks things like that Texas has sway.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Oh yeah. It has an extraordinary amount of influence. And yet you know this is one of the areas where I feel most concerned about, our state and our country. Because Texas has this inordinate presence in the future of America. If you have 10 percent of all the schoolchildren in the United States in Texas, the education we give them will have a lot to do with the future of our country and the education we're giving them. Unfortunately it is a poor one. We're forty ninth out of the 50 states in terms of the contribution we make towards each student. And it shows in the nation's report card came out two weeks ago. And for the fourth grade were 41st place in the eighth grade and 45th place. You know that is unacceptable. And you know these kids are our future.

AMT: There is real Texas California rivalry, yes?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Oh my God, yes. I once wrote a book about twins and there's a form of identical twin called a mirror image. And they're biologically you know they're genetically the same but biologically somewhat different. One will be left handed and one will be right handed. One would have a mole on the left cheek and the other on the opposite cheek. So they unfold. And yet they're exactly the same. And California and Texas are a little like that. They're opposites but they're very similar. You know we have we're both majority-minority states which is unusual but it also prefigures the country that America is becoming they have opposite politics. You know California hasn't got a single Republican elected statewide and we haven't elected a Democrat in Texas more than 20 years.

AMT: So that's incredible. No nothing.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: No not a single. You know when Ann Richards lost to George Bush in that governor's race that was really the end of democratic politics in the state it being any kind of force of influence. But California and Texas I also think of them as you know like strands of DNA revolving around there in a relationship and they revolve around each other. When I was a young man in Dallas Texas was blue and California was red. You know Texas produced Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society California produced Ronald Reagan and the modern Republican revolution. So you know they are constantly evolving but they always seem to evolve and revolve around each other and the dynamic of the entire United States is invested in it. And you know the top 10 cities in the United States three in California three in Texas. Number 11 is Austin where I live but there are only four other cities in the entire United States among the top 10 that aren't in either California or Texas.

AMT: When you say top 10 you mean in terms of population.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Yes, population.

AMT: And just like we can't talk Texas without talking oil. How important is the oil industry?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: We wouldn't be talking about Texas at all if it weren't for oil. Oil really made Texas what it is not just you know in terms of his economy but in terms of his reputation. It started at the opening of the 20th century in 1901. There was a there was a little hill outside Beaumont in east Texas. It was called the Sour Spring Mount and it was gassy schoolboy's used to set it on fire sometimes. And at the time you know people didn't have much knowledge about petroleum geology but there was this disreputable con man. And let me interjected disreputable con men play an inordinate role in the future.

AMT: We going to talk more about that too. They seem to be everywhere in your book.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: They make they make a lot of history but this guy was named Patillo Higgins and he decided to drill for oil there and he was hoping to get 50 barrels a day. And he projected that he would hit oil at a thousand feet. Now he made this figure up but he hired this guy named Captain Anthony Lucas who was a Croatian American mining engineer. And back then they didn't drill wells. They pounded them into the earth. But Captain Lucas decided to use this Rotary drill bit which is an innovation at that time, and there was quicksand under the sour spring mount. And so the hole kept collapsing and the innovated this idea of pouring mud inside and it formed a kind of concrete that held the hole together. And those are the two innovations that really created the modern drilling industry. And at a thousand twenty six feet almost exactly what Patillo Higgins forecast, there was suddenly this noise and six tons of drilling pipe shot up over the derrick. This has never happened before. And you know mud and boulders and you know the roughnecks all scattered. You know it was terrifying and then you know went quiet and they started to creep back to the well to gather stuff together. And suddenly there was this roar from deep inside the Earth from another Eon you know. And mud flew up rocks and then oil shooting 150 feet into the air. The first gusher and it was called Spindletop. And instead of 50 barrels a day 100,000 barrels was flying into the air every day until they were crafted. And that's more than all the wells in America were producing at that time. And you know what happened of course afterwards is oil prices collapse, there were simply too much of it. And this has been a pattern throughout Texas economic history that you know you bring in these massive amounts of oil grade oil fields and then it's followed by a collapse.

AMT: The boom in the bust.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: The boom in the bust. The typical formula was cheap oil is good for the economy but not for Texas. So when America was going well it meant that Texas was down and vice versa.

AMT: And Canada of course had a sensitive issue in Alberta. I want to go to a pivotal moment in history. It's from your own childhood as well. This is a report from Dallas television station WFAA the afternoon of November 22nd 1963.

SOUNDCLIP

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen you'll excuse the fact that I'm out of breath but about 10 or 15 minutes ago a tragic thing, from all indications at this point this happened in the city of Dallas let me quote to you this. And if you'll excuse me if I am out of breath. A bulletin. This is from the United Press from Dallas: President Kennedy and Governor John Connally have been cut down by assassin's bullets in downtown Dallas. They were riding on open automobile when the shots were fired. The president his limp body carried in the arms of his wife Jacqueline has rushed to Parkland Hospital.

AMT: Lawrence tell me what it was like to be a young teenager in Dallas that day.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well I remember that day really clearly. You know there was- I went out to get the newspaper that morning and there was a wanted poster on top of the newspaper wanted for treason J. John F. Kennedy you know that was one of the artefacts that was later discussed in the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination. And you know Dallas was off the rails, politically speaking. You know before Kennedy came to town there was an instance where Lyndon Johnson who was our senator but his vice presidential nominee during the election and his wife Lady Bird were assaulted by what was called the mink coat mob in downtown Dallas, spat up on.

AMT: Society women in mink coats spat on Lyndon Johnson.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Yes. And I remember watching that on television with my mother who knew these women and she said 'Shame. Shame.' She was so shaken. And then when Adeline Stevenson came in he was a U.N. ambassador for U.N. Day. Some woman who is a wife of a prominent insurance executive hit him over the head with a placard which said if you seek peace ask Jesus. He was trying to reason with her. And there was none of that to be had. And so there was a reputation that the city had earned for being hostile and right wing fanatics. And there was a lot of that in this city. So the same time it also felt to me as a 16 year old the most boring place imaginable. Nothing would ever happen in Dallas. And then the president came to town. I always think of Dallas as being a city full of paradox because you know as they were coming into the city my father was waiting for the lunch that was at the market hall for the president and some of my schoolmates were in the crowd. The last words that Kennedy heard in life are first lady Nellie Connally turned to him and said: 'You can't say that Dallas doesn't love you Mr. President'.

AMT: That was the last thing he heard.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Yes.

AMT: You said if John F. Kennedy was fated to be murdered somewhere I was glad it happened in Dallas.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: You know this sounds harsh but the way I look at it is Dallas was taken down in the way that no other city in America has ever been and it was a huge stigma to be from Dallas at that time. It was humiliating. But there is a link between humiliation and humility, if you have the courage to take that step and the city learn from it. And I was in Dallas when the police were killed in July two years ago, and it was a remarkable thing to see how the dignity of the city- A completely different city than it was in 1963, has so much more tolerant and open and progressive. You know it is a fine place to live now and it really is in contrast to the politics that seem to be taking over the rest of the country.

AMT: I was just going to ask you when you look at the politics that royaled Dallas in 1963, if you see similarities to today's American politics?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Yes. You know one of the things that characterized Dallas is that there was this kind of violence of political talk. You know the you know sort of boastful extremism which seems so characteristic of our politics in America right now. The polarization that we saw in in Dallas is very typical of the national conversation that we're having. You know the radio station, the Rachel Hodd and his lifeline radio was you know one of the most extreme right wing outlets. Now you know that's milk toast compared to some of the commentary that we hear in media today and especially on the Internet.

AMT: Then there's the politics. I mean it's interesting you make the point that Donald Trump in a crazy way really is seems to be a product of Texas.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well if he had a cowboy hat rather than that trucker cap people would recognise I think a certain mentality there. You know what people hold Texans responsible for this kind of braggadocio. You know this carelessness with your personal life and with your finances and with the truth. And those are qualities that you know Trump exemplifies almost perfectly. And I often wonder if Manhattan will ever be taken down the way that you know Fort Worthwood have been if Donald Trump was from there.

AMT: It's funny that you call it a trucker hat because of course in Texas you make the point that Texas they buy more trucks than anybody else and every big truck manufacturer actually has a Texas version of their vehicle.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Oh yes.

AMT: There's pickup truck heaven.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well if you know if you can envision what Manhattan looks looks like with yellow cabs and just take the cabs out and put pickup trucks. That would be Texas.

AMT: The other stereotype we associate with Texas is the image of the Gunslinger. How important are guns to Texas culture?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I think in some ways that's been exaggerated because you know there are a lot of states with very liberal gun laws, by liberal I mean you know free to carry. And Texas has been only recently, opened carry in some of these things that have been pioneered by other states. And there are states like Vermont where anybody can carry a gun, any non-child. And you don't think of Vermont being you know wild woolly West thing. But you know Texas has an unfortunate history with guns not just the assassination of a president. The school shooting thing really began with Charles Whitman, and I think it was 1966. He climbed the tower at the University of Texas in Austin and began pulling the trigger. He had an arsenal and you know this is a pattern. You know it was the first of these. And the first person he shot was a classmate of mine from high school who is nine months pregnant and he shot her baby. You know the unborn child was the first to die. Claire survived but you know it was- nobody realised it then but it was a precedent for so much that would happen in the future.

AMT: You have a gun permit.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I do. Well there's a reason for that. It's a little different than you might expect. If you get a concealed carry license in Texas, you can walk into some offices such as the state capitol where I spent a lot of time and instead of going through the scanning machine behind all the tourists, you just pick out your concealed license and wave it and they just come on through. So the person most likely to walk into a building with a gun is not subject to examination.

AMT: That is wild. I remember when that law came out. What's that about? They didn't want to wait in line with their guns?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Right. Who wants to wait in line? But lobbyists and reporters as well as you know a lot of the law makers get their concealed weapons license whether or not they're actually carrying concealed weapons. And a lot of lawmakers do carry concealed weapons.

AMT: And in that way they get through security faster. They don't have to go through security. Let's talk a little bit more about that legislature. They sit only every other year.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Now why is it so surprising to you?

AMT: That is I think that's going to be surprising to most people. Why is that not surprising?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well Sam Houston is one of the great heroes of Texas history. And there's a there's a statute to Sam Houston on the road from Houston to Dallas and it stands 60 something feet tall. And if you drive off into a little park where it is and look at the base of the statue there is a saying of Sam Houston. It says: 'Govern wisely and as little as possible'. And that's a maxim that Texans take very seriously.

AMT: So in other words they have a legislature that only sits every other year because they're not- They don't like government.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: ,And you know the truth is if you are living in Austin I often feel like Austin is like Rome surrounded by the Goths. When the legislature comes to town it's a welcome day when they leave.

AMT: Well you actually write that recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state's reputation for aggressive know nothingness and proudly retrograde politics. And you're talking about the Texas legislature.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Oh my God. Well there was a guy in Austin named Rob Morrow who I'd been on his email list for a long time. He's a conspiracy theorist and associate with the Roger Stone who became one of Trump's advisers. But he ran for county GOP chairmanship in Travis County which encompasses Austin and he won. Nobody knew who he was. And he shows up with a motley fool hat, more of those three corner jester hats and you know his his campaign was to promote pictures of nude women. And they were stunned but they had elected this man and he was suddenly in charge. And so they were horribly embarrassed. There was no way to get rid of him until he decided to run for president himself and it turns out to be against the rules and that Travis County GOP chairman to run for president. So they got rid of him and now he's running for the state chairmanship and his platform is wet t-shirt contest at the Alamo on the 4th of July. Well he won the previous election. So I don't know how he'll do on the state level.

AMT: It's interesting you quote the late Ann Richards former governor of Texas. At one point the ACLU and this is to the point of having there. The ACLU has a lawsuit to get rid of the manger that it's in their Christmas and she says it's a shame because those were the only three wise men in the legislature.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: We miss her wit in Texas. She was some woman I have to say.

AMT: ,Before we go we're almost out of time but I have to ask you, how popular in Texas is President Trumps idea of building a wall along the Mexican border?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: It's a very controversial subject. There are a lot of Republicans they were be on side of that. But the you know the closer you get to the border the less popular it is. For one thing you know the border between Texas and Mexico is the middle of the Rio Grande River. Well the Rio Grande River doesn't exactly stay in the same place all the time. And you know it's moved as much as a mile in different directions you know in the course of several decades. So that seems impractical. Also it's ugly. There are other ways of containing immigration that's not legal. And Will Herd who is a representative Congressman from the border, his district by the way is the size of Indiana. And he's a Republican. But he says that he's totally against the wall. His constituents are very much opposed to it. Their high tech means of doing it that are much cleaner and more efficient. Most people come to Texas you know on the bus or something like that and simply overstay their visa.

AMT: Lawrence Wright, we're almost out of time here. Like all Texans there are many sides to you. You have a band.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I do. Yes.

AMT: A Blues Band. You play the keyboards.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I play the keyboards. Blues and rockabilly for the most part.

AMT: We are going to end but we are actually going to play a little bit of your music today at the end of our program today.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Uh oh.

AMT: But thank you for your insights on Texas.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: My pleasure Anna Maria.

AMT: Lawrence Wright author of God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State with me in our Toronto studio. That is our program for today. Stay with radio for Q and guest host J.L. Richardson. We are going to leave you this morning with a sampling of Lawrence Wright's other passion the blues. Here he is on keys with Hoodoo a collective based in Austin Texas. This is Down the Line. I'm Anna-Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Country song]

Thursday April 26, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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