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Hey, Robert here. It's been like two months since I had LASIK and I'm still seeing 2020. All I had to do was go in for a consultation, then go in for a maybe 10 minute procedure and then my eyes have been great ever since. You know, I healed up wonderfully. It was very simple, couldn't have been a better experience. So if you want to explore LASIK plus I can't recommend it enough. They have over 20 years experience in the industry and they performed more than two million treatments right now if you want to try getting LASIK plus you can get $1000 off of your surgery when you're treated in September, that's $500. Of per eye, just visitmylasikoffer.com to schedule your free consultation. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried true crime. And if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, this is La Monstra, a story of abomination and conspiracy. The story about the man who simply become known as. Lamaster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's overthrowing my democratically elected? Stay I'm Robert Evans. This is behind the ******** a podcast about the worst people in all of history. And we are, of course, recording in the immediate wake of what I think can fairly be called an insurrection by fascist dominated right wing militants. And in the immediate wake of that, I sat down with my producer, Sophie Sophie. Say hi. Yeah, not literally sit down together because of the plague, but we we got on. Text chat and I was like, you know, this fascist insurrection against a democratically elected government has a lot of similarities with other fascist insurrections against democratically elected governments. Perhaps we should talk about the history of fascist insurrections against democratically elected governments in order to better prepare people for what needs to be done in the wake of this, to stop them from succeeding the next time. And of course, once we had that idea, the only person we could possibly bring on was our good friend Jason Petty, AKA Prop. What? Uh, what the lick read. What's up? That failed nation state how y'all feeling. Quite literally, I think I text prop and I was like, hey, I want to do this. And like, it was like, yes, yeah, no brainer. There's like, there's so, like, you know, Robert myself, anybody else who has like a 7th grade level understanding of history has been like kind of flaring their arms like the crazy scientist in every movie that's like, y'all, the aliens are coming. Guys, I don't understand how come nobody is seeing us telling y'all we're standing on our heads. Yelling at you like this is point for point like. Bar for bar, point for point. We've seen this before and I don't understand what you don't understand. How? How did this? Because, like, I've been warning about this for quite a while and that it could happen here, that it could happen here. And people continuously are like, I can't believe you predicted this. And it's like, nobody predicted this. Everyone who was paying attention was like, oh, this is obviously going to happen because thousands of people are promising to do this. Yes, it's like the dog, my favorite one. My favorite meme going around was one where? Where Ron Burgundy, he was like, wow, that is. It's slowly over the past 10 years. Like, yeah, I know. I can't believe these people did exactly what they said they was going to do. This is crazy. Yeah. It's it's very frustrating. Yeah. And so, you know, the reason we decided to do this special miniseries behind the insurrections is that I think historical. That's what this is called that you're listening to. Yeah, you and I did a similar thing last year when the uprising against the police started, where we kind of talked about the history of the police. And I thought that was useful to inform people both the context of why folks were angry for a lot of folks who maybe had never really thought that much about the police and didn't understand all the the hatred. And I also thought it was useful because understanding, you know, the history of something that you want to fight is useful in fighting it, whether it's the police state or a fascist insurrection, and understanding what other fascists. Done throughout history and where they've succeeded and failed, and how the people opposing those fascists have succeeded or failed is important, both for us to know what's coming next and to avoid making the same mistakes that other people made in the past that led to them being ruled by fascists, which I would like to avoid. So now I would like to avoid that. So naturally, we're going to start with Rome, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to. We're going to be. Starting with my old friend Benito M Big Benny, as no one has ever called Benny Moo Moo Moo. Yeah, yeah. The thing that I like I mean we gonna get into this, but like off jump the the. In in my hopes to like. You know, help people figure out ways to inroads to, you know, their family members who have been cooked by this like fascist movement is like. Is is. Dig inside of you and understand what it feels like to be disenfranchised and what it feels like. To feel like you've been left behind by those that are supposed to take care of you and if you could understand that, you know, coupled with a person having really non powerful antennas to know that they're being fed ******** you know, I'm saying then I feel like you're, you're like you're you're starting to get a owners manual as to like how to not let yourself in. You trying to stop a fascist regime not incensing. And creating martyrs out of them and and confirming their feelings that. You know, everybody against them. You know, I'm saying it's just it's a matter of, like, getting behind that and being like, OK, it if this election was stolen, that would suck. You're right. That would suck if that was true. It's yeah, not though. It's not. Yeah, it's not. It's not. It's like with Q Anon. Yeah. I mean, if a bunch of Satan worshipping pedophile Wizards were eating all of our children, that would be a problem. We should fight that. But that's not happening. It's just not true, bro. Yeah, yeah. The real pedophiles in power are more like the guy you think is the 2nd coming. But yeah, yeah, so let's, let's, let's talk about old old Benito Mussolini. I started thinking about Benito as I was watching live stream footage of people breaking through the Capitol barricades and into offices with zip ties and weapons. And I I know that while this was happening in the immediate wake of it, a lot of people started bringing up historical comparisons. And unfortunately, I think a ton of those historic comparisons were were bad. Were the wrong ones. To make a good example of this would be a ton of people who compared the events of the 6th to Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. Yeah, and I think everyone here knows what that is. For those that don't listening, it was a program which is a racial amass, racial assault, like on members of a specific race, basically, that was instituted by the Nazi government against Jewish people in Germany. Hundreds of synagogues and Jewish owned businesses were burnt down on the space of a night, hundreds of people were killed, and it was a nationwide racial attack carried out at the government's behest. Right? That's not what we saw on the 2nd. That's not this. Yeah and yeah. Probably the most prominent person to make that comparison was our current governor, our former governor of California and current Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose video otherwise had some really good stuff in it about. Yeah, I was going to say I kind of dig it in the sense of like the way he was talking about the remorse of people, that was a part of it. I think if he was going to pull the Austria card, like it would have been a better, although I'm michelina's a a better parallel, but when when they burnt the Parliament. Right before, yeah. That's a more better comparison, you know, I'm saying yeah, then, yeah, then. Yes, there's an error. Has a great Tik T.O.K content. He's got like a pet donkey that follows him around. I'm sure he does. Look, I'm sure he does for a laugh. He's definitely like the, like, the meme of like, you know, when it's heartbreaking that the worst person, you know, it's an excellent point. Makes a really good point. Yeah. Great point, bro. Yeah. And I think his best point was just like how, you know, the victims of fascism continued long after the war, including the children of Nazis who, you know, were abused by parents and stuff. A great point to make wrong about Kristallnacht, when we're talking about actually good historic comparisons and valuable ones, to what happened on the 6th in DC there are a few. One of them, as you noted, was that the burning of the Austrian Parliament, which I think we're going to talk about a bit later in this series. But and other folks have kind of much more aptly, I think, compared what happened in the 6th to the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, which was Adolf Hitler's first attempt to seize power. And there's a lot of good reasons to compare that to the 6th. It's not really a perfect comparison. None of them. Are in part because when Hitler tried to overthrow the government starting in Munich, he was a political rabble rouser with no power who was trying to spark a mass revolution. And on January 6th it was like 10s of thousands of the President's fans, including a lot of police officers, active duty soldiers, and elected leaders who tried to take over the capital. It's a bit different. So we're looking for a better historic parallel to January 6th. I I think we might be better served by going back a year before the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The completely different fascist Benito Mussolini LED what came to be known as the March on Rome. Yeah, lot of really good comparisons to what's happening, a lot of good lessons in the March on Rome. So most people good before you start is just if you could. It's you never really want to like reach into the past and draw like direct lines, right, if you will. But if you could think to yourself just as a general grid, if in the story you own the side of Mussolini, you probably on the wrong side of history. I think we can say that completely. So now as you continue to think about your position in this and you that might be able to tell you which side of history you should be on right now anyway going and if you're, if you're rightfully on the side of history. It's like, well, I don't wanna stand with Mussolini, which I think the vast I, I think the vast majority of people listening to this are already there. I think one of the things this teaches is why the people who didn't want Mussolini to wind up in charge failed, you know, and and it's important to know that as well, right? So most people are probably broadly familiar of Benito Mussolini, but because of how history went down, he tends to be remembered mostly as like Hitler's ridiculous and kind of sad sidekick, like the least threatening dictator on the Axis side. Mussolini doesn't wind up as like the frightening villain in a lot of movies, right? You know? Yeah. I never thought of it like that, but. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like, you're just like, oh, you. Oh yeah, you Hitler light. Unless you was. Unless you was in it. Unless she was in Italy. Yeah. I mean, even then, Italy would have been, it would have been better to be, you know, a Jewish person in Italy than in Germany. Not a high bar, you know, the lowest bar in history, actually. Bare minimum. Yeah. But yes, he he gets this kind of reputation of just being like, incompetent and the junior partner to Hitler and not very frightening. And that really misses a lot of the history and what what people at the time when Mussolini rose to power thought. Because Hitler actually in some ways idolized Mussolini and he patterned his career off of Mussolini's career. The Munich Beer Hall Putsch was inspired directly by the March on Rome. Mussolini was not just the first, like Mussolini was the first fascist dictator. He was the man who created fascism as a political ideology. That actually took power, right. We talked about Gabriel Denunzio, who kind of invented a lot of the ideas that became fascism as A and who was a contemporary of mussolinis. But Mussolini is the guy who made fascism work for the first time. And when I say work, I mean actually seized power. Not that it was a good government or anything. He was the first fascist who seized power from a functional democracy. So he's he is not an incompetent buffoon. And you kind of you, it behooves you to understand. How he succeeded in the way that he did. We're going to do a full set of episodes on his life at some point on behind the ********. But since we're just focused on the March on Rome today, I'm going to give a little cliffs notes of Benito's life prior to him coming to power. Also Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, which is quite a name that is a mafia boss right there, except for the Andrea, right, except for the Andrea. That's when he got when he got baptized his christening, they gave him Andrea. Yeah. Either that or it's like a boy named Sue situation. And it turns out that's actually a bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. So he was born on July 29th, 1883 in a small Italian town that I'm not going to try to pronounce right now. His father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith and a socialist. He named Benito after Mexican president Benito Juarez, who's the namesake of Juarez and who was the first indigenous president of Mexico and was a a famous liberal. You know, I thought that was interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In 1902, so that's like his background. He was very left wing, right. Like your parents are naming you after the liberal indigenous president of Mexico. That's that's that's quite a thing. That's a flex right there. Yeah. What a pivot. Yeah. Yeah. This guy is one of the great all time historic pivots, you know, in 1902, Benito fled to Switzerland to avoid compulsory military service. He became active in the Italian socialist movement from afar and he grew obsessed with the writing of syndicalist Georges Morell, who believed that capitalist democracy needed to be overthrown by a combination of general strikes and violent direct action. So he's he's a socialist, he's a leftist, but he's a fan of these guys who are like, we need a revolution and violence is OK and that revolution. Right, that's like a big, big chunk of his early ideological upbringing. In 1904, Benito returned to Italy under a general amnesty for draft Dodgers, in exchange for which he he had to serve in the military for two years. He did his time, he got out and he became a left wing journalist and a firebrand, participating in a 1911 riot protesting Italy's imperialist war in Libya. He did night or five months in prison for this. So not just like a talker, like he puts his skin in the game and he does time protesting an imperialist. 4. Dang. Alright, OK yeah, yeah, he was, he was. He was not like wishy washy about this stuff I guess is the point I'm making. So as a ******** leftist, Mussolini hated the monarchy, which in Italy at the time was similar in its kind of power to the British monarchy. Italy is a constitutional monarchy at this point, so more or less a democracy, but they've got a king and he has some power. In 1912 Mussolini stated the king is nothing more than a useless citizen and the Italian flag is fit only for a dung heap. Sheesh. Yeah, burn it all down. Burn it all down, kind of guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very much. OK. Very much. Now it may seem odd that the first fascist dictator was a committed left wing activist in his youth, but it's really not that strange. This is a pattern that we see repeating itself over and over throughout the history of fascism in more recent times, just to talk about stuff that's happened in the last like 4 years. Jason Kessler, who is the the fascist who planned and organized the first unite the right rally in Charlottesville, got his start in political activism at Occupy in New York. You can find in Unicorn rights discord chats him talking about being very into occupy at the time. Andrew R Anaheim. Weave, who's a neo-Nazi, hacker and a prominent member of the fascist movement in this country, claims to have been an organizer at Occupy Wall Street. I found discussions in Unicorn riots archive, where we've debates with other Nazis who were there about how Occupy could have been handled differently and been more successful. And for a lot of these Nazis, the failure of the Occupy movement to garner any real change, and the ease with which the police swept it aside were major factors in radicalizing these guys to the far right, one fascist that I found in a discord conversation, said quote. That was at Occupy Wall Street in 2011. It was black Pilling as **** by which he means the experience was so disheartening that it pushed him towards fascism and that's really what we see with Mussolini. He's very involved in left wing politics. He gets arrested for them and he he sees them continue to fail right there. They don't succeed in overthrowing the government. They don't succeed in pushing the changes that he believes are necessary. And it starts to embitter him. I I often think that like some of that happens in the black community with just also like like still trying to wrap my brain around like saw video ***** for Trump on the on the at the at the at the at the. Insurrection early. It was like Chris for chump West side something something and I and I could not wrap my brain around like. How this will work, but I think it's it. I think a lot of it does have to do with the fact that like. You know, we've tried so hard we put our flag in the sand with this particular way of approaching, you know, political change and it not working that you're like, well. Forget it. You know, and then like, well, maybe this will work. Maybe this going this direction speaks more to like since the empire, the machine just met us with might and just overpowered us with might because they just they're just more powerful. Your only recourse is to be like, well, I need to be more powerful than that. Yeah. I don't know. Yes. Yes. That's exactly when you when you're I think you're really on to something like when you're when you're getting your *** kicked. And I think some of this is like I think it's probably more common with males who are kind of in activism is like and you get your pride is harmed by getting the **** kicked out of you repeatedly by the repeated failure to win, to advance by the sheer strength of your opponents. I do think that that can have the effect of pushing. People in that kind of more violent authoritarian direction, we're like, well, I just want to win. Like, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that has, if that's a part of what's going on. And I think it is for Mussolini because the switch for him really happens as a result of World War One. So basically what you've got with World War One, Archduke Franz Ferdinand gets shot dead along with his wife. And it starts this, this series of events right where Austria is going to invade Serbia and Russia is going to come in on the side of back up and like it, it starts this whole domino effect. And so there's months between his assassination and the actual outbreak of the war where everyone knows that Europe is gearing up for a war. And prior to that happening, the international left the Communist. International largely had been very anti war, very united across national boundaries. But as soon as a mass European war becomes a reality, **** starts to splinter. And there are a lot of folks who had been socialist, leftist like workers who instead of kind of siding with workers solidarity are like, well, I'm going to side with my country on yes. And you know, that's not the only thing that's happening. There's also like this. The second international tries to organize like some sort of worker strike or something, like there's a couple of ideas about how they might. Stop the war by organizing workers and all of these ideas fail and, you know, all of these ideas fail and Europe lurches towards war. And it's kind of like this moment where this big international left wing movement shows it that it's toothless in the eyes of at least the eyes of a guy like Mussolini. Like we said like this, we weren't going to let this kind of thing happen. And now what's happening? So that that for one thing is a source of frustration to a lot of people. Mussolini is more directly enraged by something that happens earlier in 1914, something called Red Week, which was when a bunch of workers, there was a big mass workers revolt in Italy that was brutally put down by Italian police and the Royal Army. And this had kind of convinced him that the bourgeoisie, leaders of left wing political parties, the actual like liberals and socialists and government, didn't really support revolution. And he did. So all of this stuff is kind of in the mix, leading to him getting kind of black pilled, to use the words of that other Nazi. And Benito doesn't come out as against the war as a result of this. Instead, he decides to become incredibly Pro War because he thinks it's going to accelerate the collapse of the Italian state and lead to a revolution, right? So in mid-september, after Italy announced her neutrality in the war, Benito tells the staff of the newspaper he worked at, Avanti, which was a socialist paper. That he'd become convinced that war alone could bring revolution to Italy. Umm. So, yeah, he's kind of like an accelerationist. We need to go to war because that's going to force a revolution. It's the only way. Yeah. Yeah. I I yeah. When you it's it's I've always at least in my head like I've I've kind of let go of the like. Linear swing of like you know, far right, far left. In my brain I know we use that because that's how we understand the world right now, but like it seems much more like circular to where it's like. They ended authoritarianism. At the end of the day, they end with a with a strong dude like so. So it was crazy like, yeah, so like the further left you go. You're still gonna end that a dude overpowering. I think, yeah. I I wish I was going to say which, which why? Like I'm now leaning more towards thinking in anarchist ways of being like, you got to get off this loop. It's just this the the whole it's there. We're going to land in the same place at some point. Somebody's gonna get oppressed, you know? Yeah. And what you're. So there's a couple of things, a couple of terms that are used a lot for the kind of thought process that you just explained. One of them is horseshoe theory, which is this idea that the left and the right, when you go far enough, come around to the same place. And I I don't subscribe to that because I don't think that left wing ideals and far right ideals are super similar. But I do think that what you see that looks like that the reason why the far left and say Soviet Russia under Stalin and the totalitarianism of Hitler. Have a lot of similarities and similar body counts is because authoritarians always. I'm trying to say, yeah, exactly, exactly. It's the authoritarian left, authoritarian, right. And Mussolini is always an authoritarian leftist, so it's easy to go authoritarian, right. If you're anti authoritarian, it's a lot harder to wind up at that. We should have a dictator place. Yeah, sometimes. Absolutely. Get off the loop because if it ends at authoritarianism, then this is not where I need to be. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If it ends with like all of the power being in one dude. A tiny number of people's hands. Yeah. No, that's not what I want. No, as well, try this. It's like somewhere on this horseshoe. I knew that that wasn't a good idea. You know, I'm saying, yeah, we need to get off the ride. And and Mussolini is very much just a guy who he he, he's, he's of that. He's, he's he's always been kind of an authoritarian, in part because he is very in love with his own ideas and thinking. And that's the same when he's on the left as when he's on the right. And, you know, it's not a clean. Process of him going from socialist to fascist, but it happens over the course of not just World War One but ramping up to getting Italy involved in World War One. So yeah Italy had prior to the outbreak of hostilities been allied with the the Central Powers. So they should have come in the war on Germany's side but they very intelligently were like, Nah, Nah, we're not we're not doing this. This doesn't seem like a good idea but and that's why. So they say we're not getting involved in the war and Mussolini becomes a Pro War activist trying to force. Italy to come into the war on the side of the Allies, so fighting against the people they've been allied with before and I'm going to quote now from a write up in 1914 to 1918 online, which is a World War One encyclopedia. It's a very good resource on all this. After his late October editorial demanded Italian intervention, socialist outrage prompted Mussolini's resignation, so he's forced to resign from the party he'd been a member of when his pro Interventionalists newspaper it'll popolo Ditalia d'Italia the the Italian people, I think, is what it stands for. Yeah, not appeared in mid November. The party expelled him. Mussolini concealed its funding by industrialists the French, his wealthy lover Margarita Sacrati, and possibly Russian agents for six months. Through editorials and demonstrations, he promoted the INTERVENTIONALISTS. Movement collaborating with syndicalist Filippo Corridoni, Mussolini demanded war against Italy's allies Germany and Austria, Hungary to demolish bulwarks against European revolution. A victorious war would forge a national mass movement demanding political change. If the government rejected war, Mussolini threatened revolution. Most Italians favored peace, but Vittorio Emmanuel, the third king of Italy, forced a war declaration on 24th of May 1915. So there's a lot of interesting stuff that's happening there. One of them is that Mussolini has an ideological reason for wanting war because he thinks it's going to lead to revolution. Another is that he's very likely getting paid by foreign powers in order to incite Italy to come in on their side. Yeah, kind of like our ad sponsors who pay us, you know, who does come in sponsored. Violence against trying to accelerate our wallets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Accelerate your wallets. Accelerate. It's collapse. It's Robert. Accelerate our wallets. 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Now it's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. Ohh, we're back. So yeah, we're, we're talking about Mussolini becomes this very much like interventionalists figure, and there's a mix of ideology and foreign backing that kind of pushes him towards it. And I could talk about websites like the Gray Zone and their weird Russian funding and how they're ostensibly left wing, but also pro imperialist intervention when some countries do it. But I won't because we need to move on to the story of Benito Mussolini, but we've seen these patterns happen recently as well, so. Mussolini was obviously just one very prominent voice in favor of war. He was a major Pro War figure, but he was probably he was not the only one, and he was probably less influential than Gabriel de Nunzio, who again we covered in a two party that I'd recommend people listen to. And to his minimal credit, after helping to monger his nation into war, Mussolini joined the army and fought as a Bersaglieri he, which is like a a marksman. It's almost like a special forces unit, right? Like it's an elite military unit, kind of like the Army Rangers it seems. OK, and he was wounded at the front by an exploding mortar in one of Italy's mini bloody stalemates with Austria. Since he'd become a very public face of the Pro War movement, the king came to visit him twice while he was in the hospital. Benito became a bona fide celebrity, and when the war ended, this provided him with a great deal of political capital. He moved further and further right, pulled in by the spell of Gabriel de Nunzio's Proto Fascist rhetoric when Italy was screwed over by her allies with the spoils of war because, like, Italy had come in on the side of the Allies, but they didn't really get **** at the end of it. Like they wanted a lot more territory, more of Austria, and they kind of got ****** out of it and that ****** off the Italian right who feel like we fought and bled and lost our comrades for this and we didn't get anything and it's because of our lame *** left wing government. That's how a lot of folks feel. And yeah, Mussolini becomes is basically, by the time the war ends, is is pretty entrenched in the growing far right in Italy. And he supports Gabriel Dinunzio when Denunzio leads an army of Italian special forces veterans to occupy the city of Fume. And this is we again. We talked about this in our episodes on Denunzio, but fume is this city that was part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia gets created at one World War One ends and they get this city that Italy thought should be theirs. So Denunzio leads an army of retired. Special forces veterans to take it, and they turn it into this weird. It's like this melting pot because in, you know, 19181919, you've got all these ideologies that are like, still kind of forming anarchism and communism and fascism are popular in a lot of, like, similar circles of people. There's a lot of interplay between them at this. Because they're all kind of new ideologies being developed and the same kinds of people who are interested in radical politics are all hanging out together. Yeah, yeah. So. Fume is like a big melting pot for all these kinds of things. And it winds up being the place where a lot of what becomes fascism gets cooked up. You know, it's like, that's interesting, you say, because like, I I do picture it as like this, like, yeah, like planets for like nebulous balls of gas where it's like, it's all the same elements. And like, you know, you're it's still like, yeah, all this stuff is still kind of coalescing and stuff like that. And but I also think this particular moment in history. For me is is. It's it should be very anchoring or or calibrating for all of us. Because what it tells you is that borders are ********. Like, yeah, like it's not real. Borders are real. Like, you know, I'm saying, like somebody just decided that fumes in Yugoslavia, like Yugoslavia came out of this plot of land has been here the whole time. Awesome. So I drew a line around it, you know, I'm saying so it's like a large chunk of the city's population are Italian, like, yes. Yeah. Yeah. All of a sudden they just woke up in another country. You know what? And so like that to me. Like, I need everybody to remember that when we're talking about our modern politics, like, this **** came from here and it's made-up well. And when we're talking about why so many people, because one of the things you see in this. Is a lot of people who were anarchists become fascists and a lot of fascists become anarchists. And it's because in part because when you when you live through a thing where suddenly 10s of millions of people wake up one day and a completely different country than they went to sleep in, yeah, everything's more malleable, right? Everything's more malleable. And it's not obviously like. Ashes of anarchism are not similar ideologies, but people who are into both may be drawn to certain similar things. For example, a major aspect of fascism is the cult of action for action's sake, the beauty of violence and physical exertion and speed. And a lot of anarchists were also into direct action, physical violence, fighting like. And so if you've got communities that are kind of embracing this idea of action for action sake, some of them are anarchists, some of them are fascists, but a lot of times they're going to wind up at the same ******* places. You know, which is kind of you also. If you look at Germany, prior to Hitler's rise to power, there were times when the Communists and the fascists fought alongside each other against the cops. It happened. It's a thing that occurred. Just this understanding that, like, whatever we have right now isn't working. Exactly. Like, you know, I'm saying, like, and so you're all going to be in a same space, you know? Yeah. And a lot of people in fume, they're not. They maybe have called themselves a fascist or an anarchist at the time or a communist. It wasn't really settled in their minds. They just knew that what they had grown up with was wrong, you know? And yeah, so fume is one of the things that comes out of this experiment. In fume is the Italian fascist movement gets, like, solidified in a lot of ways, but it it starts before, like, there's thinkers pushing it before then. And while De Nunzio is off on his adventure in fume, Benito Mussolini forms a fascist party in March 23rd of 1919. Now, a lot of the impetus behind the early fascists in Italy were demilitarized. Army veterans and particularly special forces guys, most of the fighters who accompanied Denunzio to fume were members of the Arditi, which is like the Italian equivalent of like Special Forces Guys. Like they were very elite soldiers. Mussolini had served in an elite unit of marksmen. There were a bunch of like the the guys who followed denunzio, the Arditi were like trench, like Stormers. They were do like what the German stormtroopers would do, and they were terrifying people they would go into battle with, like knives in their teeth. Grenades in both hands, like running directly ahead of artillery barrages and like, this is where like a lot of that cult of action for actions like these are adrenaline junkies. That's a huge part of early fascists in Italy and Germany. These are guys who became addicted to adrenaline during the war and can't stop fighting when they get back home. And it's a thing that is a factor in our modern fascist movements, right? A lot of, a lot of vets and cops and stuff wind up in that. Also interested in just the whenever somebody says, oh, I started a political party, I'm like, logistically, what does that look? Was there, like, paperwork you file? Like, how do you start? Like, I still think, like, yeah, we'll start a party. We'll talk about that in just a second. I want to talk a little bit more about some of these demilitarized vets. Yeah. There's a form online somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. The Rd had been formed in June of 1917 as a special forces unit in Italy. And they were like when they were like, sort of like new. One of their commanding officers addressed the unit, these very young men, most of whom came from a peasant background, who had gotten to be very good at fighting, extremely experienced veterans. And he tells his soldiers, you are the first, the best, the future owners of Italy, the new Italian generation, fearless and brilliant, you will prepare the great future of Italy, the smile of the beautiful Italian woman as your award and. You can't tell no little like young hungry, violent dude that no exactly right. Like you see the seeds of this, like why so many of these guys become fascists. And as an aside, one of the emblems on their uniform that they wore on their hats was a skull and crossbones, which is the same basic emblem that the Nazi s s, which started as like Nazi street fighters before they were a military unit. You know what they wore, right? Like a lot of the same ***** happening these guys, the Rd are famous for giving the stiff, armed Roman salute. The SIG Heil is. Those people know it, like, so a lot of this stuff, again, you see it all cooking up in World War One. And by the time the war came to an end, the liberal helical elite in Italy knew that these young guys were terrifying. That, like, oh **** we trained up an entire generation of incredibly violent, incompetent at violence young men, and now we have nothing for them to do. Like. And that they realized this is a problem. They disband the RDD, like immediately after the war ends. It takes less than a month, but these guys are still all out there and they have no plan for demilitarizing them. And I could again make some comments about what happened in Iraq after we dissolved the entire Iraqi army. Yes, like we living in that now, it's never a good idea. You have to take care of these people afterwards. Otherwise they murder people in the streets sometime or become the Nexus of a fascist. Political party. But again, four months after the Armistice ended, World War One, three months after the RDR disbanded on March 23rd, 1919, Benito Mussolini puts together a group of 100 angry young men, a mix of Italian war veterans, a lot of them special forces type guys, former socialist elected leaders and journalists. They meet in Milan and they declare the formation of the Fascist party. So that's how it happens. You get 100 dudes together and you're like, we're a ******* political party. Now start recruiting and one of Benito's first moves is to start recruiting. And the disaffected ranks of former soldiers. He brings in hundreds of these guys and he reorganizes them into paramilitary squads, uniformed in black shirts and red fez caps. Mussolini's black shirts start going after their political opponents in the street now in yeah, it's just like the formula Doc. Find somebody angry and give them a uniform. Give him a uniform. Tell them it's OK to go out and beat the **** out of people they already don't like. And I'm already angry. I'm already *****. When you say those those those dudes are your problem. And there's in any society that has just gone through a war and is dealing with economic inequality, which Italy is at this. And economic collapse and incompetent political leadership, you will be able to find tents. Sorry. You will be able to find 10s of thousands of those young men who are, yeah, I'll make this my whole life. Absolutely. I'll wear whatever. Fred Perry shirts. **** it, let's do it. I'll storm the capital. Like, totally. Yes. It's very easy. Yeah. Yes. Uh, so. Mussolini forms the fascist party. He starts organizing all these squads of black shirts. And for an idea of how fast this gets out of hand, in 1919 Mussolini starts the fascist party with 100 men. By 1921, there were 300,000 members. Sheesh. I'm gonna pause here for another little rant about modern anti fascism, because this is something that's also relevant to us. Over the last four years, since Antifa became a household name after the first unite the right rally in Charlottesville, liberal celebrities and politicians have repeatedly urged people not to confront fascists in the streets. Some have even complained about doxxing, which is the public naming and shaming a fascist activists who are caught in the wild doing Nazi stuff. Now, the general argument tended to go something like this. People showing up to fight them just emboldens them and brings more of them out. Ignore them. And they'll go away. This was more or less the attitude of most, but not all American liberals. Throughout much of the Trump administration, Antifa tended to be condemned as often as groups like the Proud boys. Police were given a free hand to use violence on anti fascists, while fascist St movements were ignored or directly enabled by law enforcement and by political parties while a political party. These organizations as a result grew steadily in power and reach for several years now. On January 2nd, 2021, Liberal activist Amy Siskind tweeted if you live in DC. Stay off the streets on January 6th, let the DC police take care of the white supremacists like they did in Oregon yesterday. I actually think it will be fun to watch lol. Yeah, not to take that aged well. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Now, when anti fascists say fascist movements have to be confronted immediately and often with physical force, they're not always at least using bluster or bravado. They're certainly adrenaline junkies within the ranks of me. I've met a few of those people, absolutely. But that's not entirely or even mostly what that is. It is in fact a calculation based on a century of documented history. Again, from 100 to 300,000 in about 2 1/2 years. Yeah. Wow. Because ain't nobody say nothing. Yeah because they or not enough was set or not enough to say it's it's yeah, it's crazy when you're dealing with like. When you like, I said, you already angry, you're already like. All you understand is might. And it's like you can't reason with somebody that only understand might, yes, but then if I go meet you with might. And I don't beat you. Yeah. Then I we all wasted our time. And and you you feel vindicated because I wasn't able to stop you. It's just, yeah, this. The the whole the whole concept. Just puts everybody in a pickle. It's not an easy thing to solve. Yeah, you can't solve it. You know, I'm saying, yeah, I I'd like. I mean, the best solution is to oppose them with overwhelming numbers because that actually drastically diminishes the amount of violence that there will be because none of these guys want to get into a fight if they're outnumbered 300 to one. That's not when the violence happens. It's when they have the numbers or there's parity of numbers, you know? And that's why people were saying, like, what if 10s of thousands of people have showed up in the streets of DC to protest? I don't think they would have made it through the capital barricades now. It's a pandemic. None of this is a simple situation and it wasn't simple in Italy and we'll talk. We're going to talk now about the anti fascist resistance in Italy, because in Italian, like Italian fascism did face substantial resistance from anarchists and other anti fascists. And we're about to talk about why that didn't wind up working out. Much of the anti fascist resistance in Italy also came from members of the Rd from other like Elite soldiers who just like weren't Nazis, right you like hadn't or fascists who hadn't been. Pushed right. Who'd gotten left instead or who just didn't? Still believed in the idea of democracy. Because again, anti fascists in Italy, there's a mix of like the hard left, but also just like people who are Republican, right. And I mean that in like the sense of I support a Republican form of government not like and not like a modern Republican. It's totally different. Yeah. So the inciting incident for the violence between anti fascists and fascists in Italy is generally seen to as having been an attack Mussolini ordered on April 15th, 1919. Against the newspaper he used to write for Avanti, which was the Socialist Party newspaper. Now, Italian fascists were courageous and often well organized, but they had to contend with not just fascists, but the police and the army. This meant that the deck was stacked against them from the beginning. Meanwhile, events and fume caused Mussolini to realize that he had an advantage in the fact that the police and the army were inherently sympathetic to fascists. So again, we talked about Denunzio's occupation of fume in another episode, but I a brief. Pressure is worthwhile. In short, he occupies fume for about 15 months. There's all sorts of art and weird sex and and, you know, political churning. Yeah, things go a little wild and eventually the King of Italy, like, is forced to do something. So King Victor Emmanuel the third, whose nickname was little sword because he's a tiny guy. Keep all things to be called. I know that. A great little sword, bro. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, they're Italians. You know what they're saying? Yeah, yeah. I was calling you can't be the king and called little sword. You gotta like, Dang, that's he's not a very good kick. So he's very sympathetic to what Denunzio is doing. He wants Italy to control fume. Right. So he thinks that De Nunzio and his proto fascists are in the right, but also. Fume went to Yugoslavia by international treaty and he's not about to go to war with the rest of Europe over a city of 60,000 people. So he has to send in the Army and Navy to clear Denunzio out December of 1920. Now, after this denunzio spell over the Arditi and the other really hardened war veterans who had like gone to him in mosque like there, his spell over them is broken and they switched their allegiance to Mussolini. So these guys, the best fighters like Mussolini's early guys, aren't really as competent. The people who had taken fume who were like really, actually. Hard and dedicated to ******* **** up like those. People start swarming over to Mussolini and Mass after December of 1920, and they expand the ranks of the Blackshirts significantly. And Mussolini doesn't just benefit in that way. He also takes a really important lesson away from what happens in fume. And I'm going to read a quote from the Warfare History Network, who did a great write up on all of this. This is them describing what Mussolini learns from this occupation. The police would often overlook fascist depredations in favor of attacking their traditional leftist. Enemies, the socialists. The police would also fire on opponents of the monarchy. More importantly, the douche observed, which is Mussolini's nickname, so would the military. Therefore, he realized he had to win over the king, the police, and the armed forces by a clever mix of both public bluster and, behind the scenes, old fashioned political maneuvering to attain appointed or elective office. By legal means, in other words. Denunzio, he realizes Dinunzio is able to get this far and occupy the city because the army wasn't willing to fight him. The police weren't willing to stop him while he was marching there because they're sympathetic. But when Denunzio put himself in opposition to the Italian crown and the will of the government, the police and the army cracked down. They did their duty because they're loyal to the state inherently. So if he's going to win, he can't be fighting them, and he can make use of the fact they're sympathetic if he just becomes part of the government. That's the way Mussolini. Realizes fascism is not going to win by a revolution. Fascism is going to win by democratic means because the deck is stacked in our favor if we try it that way. If we try to, like, lead a violent revolution, they'll murder us like they would anyone trying to lead a violent revolution. If we become part of the government, they'll help us crush our enemies and we'll gain power. Dude, that. Yeah, the finessing, because it's. Yeah, it's when you lay it out, it's pretty logical, you know? Like, yeah. Monarch, we'll talk about something that's lasted. Thousands. It's it's it's in their DNA, dog. Like, you can't, you know, I'm saying, like, I just it's too, it's like it's too much to ask. Yeah. You know, I'm saying it's too much to ask of these people to try to, like, go against their very nature, to be like. But if you if you include the crown, Oh no, you keep your king. We're just going to get rid of the left. You don't like them anyway, do you? Help us kill them, like, yeah. Yeah. Congrats. You're a fascist now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's very savvy. And this is, again, why I think. You need to have more of the kind of, like, respect for Mussolini as opposed to seeing him as this buffoon is. He's the first he he figures it out. He figures out how fascists are going to win anyway. So Mussolini decides, OK, I have to. I can't do what the anarchists and the Communists and the left do and try to, like, overthrow the government. That's not going to work. My path to victory is going to be finding a way into the government, and this was not hard for him to do. He runs for office, and in May of 1921 he's elected to the Chamber of Deputies. In Rome, along with 34 other fascist party members, it's quick. Very quick and they're kind of in the middle of the pack in terms of how many elected leaders they have. But they're they're in the government now and Mussolini barely ever showed up in chamber because he thought any governing body based around him compromising was dumb and not worth listening to. But he liked the legitimacy that elected office gave him and his party. And it's not a coincidence that 1921 is also the year when the Royal Italian Army joined the police in cracking down on anti fascists, because now the fascists are part of the government, right? So we can, yeah, now we are guys. Becoming an elected leader also gave Mussolini immunity from prosecution while he was in office. This was helpful because while the Fascist party gained electoral power, Mussolini's blackshirts were increasingly committing murder. And I'm going to quote now from a study in the Journal of Values based leadership. Fascists agitated against the left in streets and neighborhoods across Italy. Socialist offices, institutions and party newspaper headquarters were attacked and burned militias organized throughout the country in anti Bolshevik. Mercedes breaking up strikes and fighting labor unions and farmer coops. The fascist squads, dressed in black shirts and uniforms, were supported by the local police, land owners, merchants and industrialists. They used violence to destroy any organization they felt could be in opposition to the doctrine of fascism. Thousands of people were beaten, killed or forced to drink Castor oil and run out of town. Hundreds of union offices, employment centers and party newspapers were looted or burnt down. In October of 1920, after the election of a left administration in Bologna, Fascists invaded. The Council chamber causing mayhem and nine deaths. The Council was suspended by the government later, so again a left wing administration is elected in this city. Fascists invade the council and kill nine people and it's suspended by the government. Later, Socialist and Catholic deputies were run out of Parliament or had their houses destroyed. The two black Years 1921 to 1922 destroyed opposition to the fascists. Union organizations were crushed. The Feteira Farmers Co-op shrank from some one million members to less than 6000. Less than five years, unable to defend basic democratic rights or prevent the criminal activities of a private militia that operated openly in nationwide, the state had lost all credibility. Yo *********** any of that sound familiar? Yes, it does. It's it's like, yeah, God dog like you. It's something. It's something that fascinated me as you was reading this is like. Really helping you get into the brain of like a fascist to where it's like. The government's not. The head, but an appendage. Yeah, like you're just, you're a, you're an, you're a tool. That I wield, just like the population, the labor unions, the military, the street guys, they're all just, they're all just appendages. These are arms. They're tentacles. But your means to an end. So I'm getting into the government not because I feel like that means I'm made it. It's just no, I just need to wield the government or my and that like, to me, that's like a you just like, oh, it's like your relationship. This transactional, like, it's a functional. This isn't the goal. I just need that you're my sword and I'm like, yes. Yes, exactly. Government. Exactly. Sword. Yeah. Yeah. This is my weapon that I use on you. It's not a it's not a list of, as I think a lot of liberals see, it's not a a series of obligations. It's not a social contract. It's a gun. It's a gun. It's a gun. And when you. Yeah. That's crazy. They listen these, these. So everything we just read that the black shirts did has been the goal for years of the American fascist movement. Not just of groups like the proud Boys, but of more extreme and explicitly Nazi organizations. You can see evidence of this in attempted actions of men like Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Hassan, who was caught with an arsenal and a list of Democratic lawmakers he planned to murder. This is very much what groups like the Proud Boys wanted to do to left wing organizations nationwide. That's why you saw so many groups of right wing counterprotesters from malicious show up at BLM rallies, right? It's why before 2020 they were showing up at left wing anti fascist events. It's what you saw during the unite the right rally in Charlottesville. Leftists surrounded and assaulted in mass for standing against fascists. One of the great successes of the anti fascist movement in the United States that was not something that we saw in Italy has been the fact that they actually did succeed in the widespread disruption of particularly the leadership. Cast of different fascist organizations. Basically everyone involved in planning unite the right had their life ruined and most of them are no longer relevant on the streets. Nobody talks about Jason Kessler anymore. Nobody talks all that much about Richard Spencer anymore. Some of them are in jail like a ****. What's that guy's name? The crying. Not Chris cantwell. That's all that was, homie, that got kicked off of Tinder. Yeah, yeah, that. I think that happened to him too. And, you know, a lot of them, like Richard Spencer's drowning in legal fees. And lawsuits from people and and yeah, in 2018, not just angry at court cases, but angry at the fact that his speeches were continuously disrupted by anti fascist activists. Richard Spencer complained that giving these speech like having these gatherings was no longer fun. And quote, Antifa is winning now. He wasn't precisely right about that because January 6th showed that the fight is very far from one. Yeah, but Spencer was beaten and most of the original wave of fascist leaders. People who wanted to do what Mussolini did, whose goal was to do what Mussolini did, guys like Spencer, they've been ******* sidelined. Which means that most of the people who are prominent now have not been prominent in in the position of leadership for all that long. So while you have groups like the proud boys that have been around this whole time, militias that go back quite a while and more extreme groups that go back quite a while, a lot of the leaders have been disrupted one way or the other. If had their lives ****** ** and it stopped them from doing in some ways what maybe they might have. Wise done. It stopped them from gaining as much power. It stopped their organizations from being as cohesive. Some organizations have been shut down like identity Europa. So it's this has been, if we want to look at like successes of a modern anti fascist movement, that's been one of them. And I think we can credit that for the fact that the attack on the capital on the 6th was not better organized or more cohesive because there has been disruption of these movements. You know what else would be a disruption of our our movements right now, Robert? That was going to an ad break. Capitalism, because that is going to disrupt my train of thought significantly. Yeah, I don't like that. I decided to do that. But America, it happened. Chip, that's a good call. Everybody eat a chip. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the build to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. 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So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on Tik T.O.K. You maybe even heard the rumors, your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we hear at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions. Sometimes there are answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing this research. With you for the first time ever in a book format, you can pre-order stuff they don't want you to know now. It's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. We're back. So, prop, I think you had you had something on your mind before we uh, uh, what the hell was I gonna say when I say break and you ate a chip? What was I gonna say? Ohh. There's something. That I think the these old school fascists did. Old school. Wow that these new guys? They haven't done it. Yeah. And I think that's it's it's one of those things. It's a fine. It's a fine distinction because I do think there's a lot of value in showing these people as is absurd and as sad as they are, you have to do it without also making them feel like they're not a threat, which is hard. Yeah, that's a, that's A and and thankfully, I think one of the positives of how bad everything went on the 6th is that as absurd as it is, you know, one of the difficulties about talking about this movement to people. For a while has been that like, folks were like, OK, well these are a bunch of kooks on the Internet wearing dumb T-shirts about Q like, we why should I take this serious? Like that's why you should take it seriously. Because they did crazy. Yes. You just. Yeah. It's something again. Like dangerous. Yes, when you, when you, when you. That's why I said earlier, it's like somebody hungry and angry. Like you would if somebody tell you they're willing to die. Believe them. You know, I'm saying like you are, you you should believe them. You take you underestimate. Something you learn living in just the inner city. You don't underestimate anybody. Like, if you know they presented it to you like, I just, I don't know how hungry you are. I might look like your lunch now if I could overpower you. Or there's a whole other scenario, but you write like, I'm not going to underestimate you. And I really feel like, you know, fast forwarding or, yeah, bringing us back to now is that. I'm not sure. You know, all, all, all, all Joe Biden really understand how serious your situation is. I don't think he does say they was gonna kill you because, like, I don't think you understand they. That meant somebody come into a capital building with a Viking horn. That man don't care about his life. He going to kill you? Yeah, exactly. And I I think, I don't know. That is again, one of the problems is I think a lot more people are taking it seriously, but I don't think Joe Biden is. I don't think you. I don't think you understand, bro. Like yo don't you understand the severity of the situation? It's not done on the 20th Big dog. Like we not we not done. Yeah there's a bunch of people out there who if they had gotten who who if they get their hands on you will do great harm to you and they almost did it once in their heads at least you know that practice run, homie. Yeah. So let's let's talk about we we we got a little bit of a tangent there but I want to talk about the Italian anti fascist so we just talked about. Kind of. What I see is one of the big successes of the American anti fascist movement. I want to talk about why the Italian anti fascist movement did not succeed. So the Italian anti fascists began to raise their own proper army in July of 1921 because again the fascists had an army, the the black shirts were an army, and it was doing great damage to not just like anarchist, but to all left wing movements around the country. So they formed their own army, the Arditi del Popolo, like the peoples Arditi, I think. So again, they're still using that. From a lot of them are veterans and they were a heterogeneous mix of anarchists, syndicalists, socialists, communists, Republicans, and other non authoritarian ideologies. The Arditi del Popolo were popular among the lower classes among poor Italians because they had no party affiliations. They offered protection from the fascists, who were basically a violent gang. Now there were other malicious style groups that confronted Fascists, including the Arditi Rossi, which was a communist organization but the local Communist Party. Forbade them from allying with the anarchists and the Republicans and the like because like, you guys aren't our friends either, right? This is again. You see this happening in Germany now, there were communists who were part of the Arditi del Popolo, but they weren't like party communists. You know, there's a difference between those two things. And communists in this era is used a lot for people who are like very anti authoritarian. A lot of folks would consider them basically anarchist today and also for people who are like Stalinists, you know, OHS. And they weren't stalling us yet because it was, you know, 19. Oh yeah, I was like, wait 21. But like, yeah, they that's where they that's where they're they were they were headed. Yeah, so on July 25th, 1921, the Arditi del Populo held their first National Congress uh. One of their leaders, a guy named Argo Secondary, outlined the organization's goals in a speech, and this is Argo here, the RDT del Populo's action has to be defensive, but defense means, above all, to prevent and to render impossible any harm that can be caused by the adversary. The RDT del Populo do not carry out punitive expeditions, but perform acts of justice. They do not carry terror into the population, but defend the people and organize their security. That is why the Arditi del Populo welcome members of various parties and contain representatives of all political beliefs. They do not intend to make politics, but leave this to the already existing parties and economic organizations. The RDT del Populo must act like a workers army and give the proletariat defense and protection. Oh, that's not going to work. Yeah, yeah, they tried. Now you want to guess why it didn't work? They had no actual goals. There was just like, we're just, they're like, Oh no, there's no plans in my head. I'm like, ain't no platform. You just said we're gonna leave that to the government. Y'all we just going to make sure, like, no food. The governments. Compromise. Anyway, tell me to answer. That is a great, that is a great, you know, that didn't even occur. But you're you're right. Like, these guys are saying our only goal is to defend you from the fascists. But that's not nearly as popular as saying, hey, here's what we we're the fascists, here's what we believe, here's our platform, here's what we're going to change. And we have this army, right? Like, that is that is a very good point. Like you like you said, they're leaving the platform up to the government who is not on their side and they don't like you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, that's not everybody, right? There's a lot of anarchists and stuff. Aren't saying like I think we should leave it to the government, but they are saying like, I'm not going to. I think that fighting fascism with these other people is more important than, you know, pushing my own political beliefs in this in this area, which is I think a respectable thing to take. But it was a problem that there was not a concerted organized counter left wing movement that was like that, that had like a solid platform. And the to the extent that the fascists did right, there were different left wing groups that confronted them and had platforms. But it was not like, what? It was not on the side on the same scale, you know? Yeah. And that's a problem that antifascists still have today, right? Yeah. There's a strength in saying, like, hey, if you're a communist, if you're an anarchist, if you're just a libertarian who's not an authoritarian, if you're a Democrat, like, come join us. We're just trying to fight the fascists, but there's a weakness in. Well, but also, we don't agree on anything other than that. Right. Like, yeah, it's like, OK, cool. So what if you win? Yeah. What do we do after that or how do you win if they have a thing they believe that they're fighting for and you're mainly fighting? Against and that that is true. There's a good point to that and there's obviously there's a lot of anti fascists who do who wrap their anti fascism in this is part of the struggle against capitalism. This is part of the struggle for a better world. This is part of a revolutionary. That's a lot of it today. And there those people did exist in Italy at the time, but this large organized, the Arditi del Popolo isn't really doing that and it's it's part of their downfall I guess because the government starts spying on them as is always the case whenever like this. Organizing any government? Yeah. Been undefeated boy. Yeah. And the and Italy's FBI equivalent actually did confirm in a report to the government that the Arditi del Popolo had quote only one principal aim. That is to react against fascism with the same means that are employed against them, IE armed defense. So the the Italy's like FBI equivalent is like these guys are only there to for defensive purposes. But despite this, the government orders a crackdown on the RDTL populo. They enforce anti paramilitary laws against them, they dissolve local cells, they imprison many leaders and. Members, and by October the organization is essentially defunct. Now. No such actions were taken against the Black shirts, and as a result, by the end of 1921, Mussolini's Fascist party had more than 1/4 of a million members, or like 300,000 members. Something like that. This is one of those situations where, like, yeah, you know, your house is getting broken into and you called the police and the police arrest you? Yeah, like fam, this is my house. Like, I'm telling you, I'm not the problem. I don't understand this. I'm telling you, this is the issue. And I we're going to book them, Danno. It's like, oh man, like, I feel like, I don't know. That's what it sounded like to me. I'm like you infiltrating the wrong hood right now. Yeah, the the police crackdown, pretty in the army, cracked down exclusively on the anti fascists, and the fascists are allowed. To continue to organize. And they said like they used the same laws against them. They could have used on the fascists for having the black shirts. They just don't choose. They choose, not really. And the part that don't make sense and continues to not make sense is like you said, the fascists are telling you they platform. This is our plan. We finna overthrow you. And put all our guys in power. And that's our dude. That's our plan. You on our side? OK, cool. Like, yeah. Yeah it's because they it's you know it's it's it's because hatred of the left unites the fascists and the people who wouldn't necessarily be whole hogging on fascism but are because they hate the left which is you know why this this keeps happening and why. Yeah it's it's it's frustrating. We deal with versions of the same problem today and This is why I don't suggest people who are talking about like, well in the wake of the 6th we need a new anti domestic terrorism statutes like that's only going to be used on the left like they'll do. They'll use it once on a couple of proud boys and then it will be used against leftist for decades. That's the way it's going to happen. And Muslims, you know anyone who's not a white conservative man. So as we know the problem is white people. Yeah, yeah. Although in Italy, white people basically everybody's white. So that's really pretty easy to say now. Yeah, so I'm just kidding by the best listeners. I'm just kidding. I'm much more nuanced than that. I'm not kidding. Behind the ******** listeners. So 1921, end of 1921, early 1922, the anti Fascist resistance has been heavily like not completely eliminated but very badly broken. The fascists, artists and that they have hundreds of thousands of members. They have elected leaders in government. Now again they're kind of middle rung. When it came to their actual number of elected leaders, they're not in charge at all. But Benito didn't care about how many actual elected deputies they said. He famously stated I prefer 50,000 rifles to 50. Thousand votes. What mattered to him was having a presence in the halls of power, which would enable him to get those rifles on his side. And of course, the government's already shown that they're going to let him accrue rifles while they stop his opponents from getting rifles. Yeah, now Mussolini starts in 1922, sketching out the dimensions of an ambitious and daring plan for a power grab. He had spent the last year or so placing strategic groups of fascists around the country, replacing shattered left wing trade unions with their fascist equivalent, which allowed him to organize postal workers. Cab drivers and other working communities. He expanded the black shirts into a force of 10s of thousands of veritable paramilitary army. On October 16th 1922, he convened a meeting in Milan with his most trusted deputies, including the three commanders of the Black Shirts and two retired Italian army generals. He announced that he was planning to organize a mass March on Rome. He would gather a force of 10s of thousands of black shirts and March to occupy the capital and force a change of government. And at this stage Mussolini did not think that he was going to be the head of that. Government. Instead, his goal was to force a coalition, a liberal Prime Minister with five fascist ministers, basically like cabinet secretaries, kind of who would be the real power behind the scenes. So he wanted to have a liberal like in front and have it all be run by fascists, right? OK. So the actual inspiration for the March on Rome came not from Mussolini, but from the secretary of the National Fascist Party, Michelle Bianchi. Bianchi wanted an armed fascist insurrection to force the liberal ruling class to hand over power to Mussolini himself, rather than even paying lip service to the idea of liberal democracy. And Bianchi eventually, like, convinced everyone to go with his plan. Now true to form, Mussolini took credit for it, later claiming that the March, the plan for the March in Rome, had come to him after a rally in September when his supporters had chanted to Rome. The Rome. But in any case, by October of 1922 he's ready to do this ****. So Mussolini gives a speech to about 60,000 of his followers at a fascist Congress in Naples on October 24th, and he tells them our program is simple, we want to rule Italy. Now. As he spoke on the 24th, units of his blackshirts were fanning out to occupy key locations around Italy in preparation for this March on Rome. In all, some 26,000 fascist paramilitaries assembled with illegal arms and ammunition. From the warfare history Network quote elicit, stores of arms and ammunition were received secretly from sympathetic police stations and some army barracks, while armories and even museums were raided for antique firearms. The overall array of weaponry included shotguns, muskets, powder loaded pistols, golf clubs, syths, garden hose, tree roots, table legs, dynamite sticks, dried salt, cod fish, and even an oxes jawbone. Just whatever they can beat someone with. If they can't get a gun, it's anything they can hit someone with. And imagine a antique weapon. Already in 1923, yo. Say, like, that's an old gun. That's an old gun, boy. Yeah. Weird. It's just whatever they can get their hands on. So that was you actually answered one of the questions I had. I was like, so if they're marching to Rome, where are they coming from? So they coming from everywhere. He's in Naples right now, but they come in from everywhere. They are coming from everywhere. And they have horses and carts, trucks and wagons. They even have a race car with the machine gun mounted to it. And they have guys riding on trains that style and finesse you. Like there's some style in the in machine gun race you gotta get right there. You gotta give it to him. Yeah, and a lot of people are just marching on foot too now. Obviously, this is a cause for concern for some people in the government. Two days after the Naples speech, former Italian Prime Minister Antonio Silandra becomes aware of Mussolini's plans, and he warns the current Prime Minister that the fascist leader was organizing an armed March on the capital. Salandra's intelligence told him that Mussolini planned to demand the prime minister's resignation and demand that he be appointed head of the government instead. So the Prime Minister obviously is also worried by this. He goes to the king with this warning and he asks the king for permission to use the police and military to suppress the fascists. The king refuses. So the reason the King says no is that he had just sat down with his minister of War, General Armando Diaz. Now the general, who was not quite well, who is basically a fascist, tells the king that if he asks the army to stop Mussolini. Quote the Army will do its duty, but it would be better not to put it to the test. Basically, it's like enough of the army likes these guys that you really shouldn't. You really shouldn't try it. So King Victor Emmanuel the third, the little sword was not like an ideological fascist. I know, it's very silly. Oh man, what if that was his like Tinder profile? So yeah, little little sword. He's not a fascist in the sense that he doesn't believe in fascism. He believes in a monarchy. And more specifically, he believes in a monarchy where he's the monarch. Yeah. Now by 1922, the Kingdom of Italy is in bad financial straits. World War One had been a disaster for the country. Great. Like not the Great Depression, but like a an economic collapse has hit Europe as a result of the end of the war. It's horrible in Munich in this period of time. Too, right? Political violence in the streets had reached a fever pitch, largely thanks to Mussolini's blackshirts, and the king was afraid there might be a civil war. More than anything, he was worried about the rising Italian left. The Socialist Party had 146 members in the Chamber of Deputies, and the Communists had 11, giving them together nearly five times as much elected representation as the fascists. Now communists and socialists aren't big fans of kings, and Victor Emmanuel crudely calculated the fascists would let him continue to be the king. He also, and this is important, calculated that the middle class would back the fascists if it mints crushing the left. And he was right on both counts. Some of the King's generals did push back and demand he sign orders to send the army out after the Blackshirts, the king threatened to abdicate at this insinuating that this would put Italy in the same position as Russia had been in when the Czar abdicated. Basically, if you force me to use the army on these fascists, I will leave the throne. And you saw what happened to Russia when Lazar left the throne. You don't want those. Gary, Bolsheviks being insurance. So let not the boss of fascists in. Come on, man. Yeah, nang. You. It's like that's. See, that's why, like at the end of the day, that's to me that's like the problem with like. When you only. Understand the world via like power broker brokering and might you know. Like in my mind, like, I take to weird comparison, but if you take like Mike Pence's like position right now, like with the 25th Amendment or President being impeached, it's like he. For lack of better term, either way, he's a *****. Because it's like you. First of all, it's not like, it's not like Donald Trump has ever respected you because you do what the hell he tells you to do. You know? I'm saying so it's like this man, this man was gonna let these. They was yelling to kill you and he didn't stop it. And you ain't do **** Mike. You ain't do ****. You let this man and you still going back this man, you're a *****. You're saying? I'm saying the one time he publicly disagrees with you. And then. He calls for your head and they want to take it and they want. And if they got the chance they would have. And you didn't say nothing, you're a *****. You know, I'm saying so it's like, I mean, I'm saying that tongue, you understand? I'm trying to say yeah. So it's like you're OK so then so then Nancy Pelosi and and it with the, with the, the Democrats, with the impeachment being. And so it's almost like them saying, yo get your boy before we do, right. Yeah. So then so now. And and then if he doesn't, if he doesn't, if he doesn't, stop the impeachment. You're a ***** again. You know, I'm saying, if you don't call for the 25th Amendment, you're a *****. You fill me. So it's just like no matter what the on, the moral of the story is you should have never signed up to play with this man. You know, I'm saying so it shouldn't have got here in the 1st place because all this, all these people understand is power brokering. So when you. So if you king little sword, you feel me, you set yourself up to a situation where these people only understand power. Either way, you're a *****. You know, I'm saying, like, I just, I don't. I mean, I'm, I hate saying it like that. I just because it's like, I'm not trying to like, throw shrapnel towards, you know, I'm saying a derogatory terrorist or female, you know, I'm saying that's not what I'm trying to say, but I am saying just in street terms, that's what we mean. There's you. Can't you put yourself in a position where you can't leave this unscathed? Yep. Yeah. And it's. Yeah, that's kind of where we are here. And so the king and also a lot of liberal elected leaders are. Like, OK, let's like, let's let these people in. Let's let them do it. They're not as scary as these leftists. So let's let the fascists into the government. Can you imagine being you? Imagine being a king where it's like, my bloodline goes back to the 1500s and I'm the one that's about to lose the I'm not going to lose this crown. You know, I'm saying, yeah, I I get the calculation. It's just you're, it's just you're the, you're the punk in this. Yeah. You're starting the ball of fascism rolling in Europe because you want to. Type of threat. And because a lot of other elected leaders, so when his so his Prime Minister resigns. When it becomes clear that the king is not going to stop the fascists and a bunch of former prime ministers, many of them liberals, start petitioning the king to make them the Prime Minister again so that they can make Mussolini their vice minister to placate the fascists. So, like, again, establishment politicians cannot wait to make a deal with the fascists. Yeah, like, couldn't do it fast enough. Wow. Yeah. The King says no, though, because the king has decided that mussolinis. Going to be the new premier, right? That he's just gonna give him straight to the big job. And while all this is going on, the black shirts are marching. So years later, Mussolini would claim to have marched on foot with his soldiers all the way to the capital. The reality is that he stayed in Milan for the first day. Few days of the March. He was seen at the theater just in a row. Yeah, he's not back here, just in case. Well, it's like how Donald Trump tells his crowd to like, March on the Capitol and then goes back home. He's like, that's the problem. Like, do y'all see this man behind bulletproof glass telling you they got guns over there? I'm not doing that. You don't understand, like, why you followed this man. Yeah, yeah. Feel like one of you might get shot anyway. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good, though. You see this glass? You gotta go shoot me. Yeah. So, yeah, he stays in Milan. He keeps a getaway car gassed up and ready prepared to flee to Switzerland. Actually, more ready to flee for Switzerland than he is to actually go to Rome, because he sure they're going to crack down on this. He's just making a gamble. He doesn't think it's gonna work. Gotta play AB. Eventually, though, after several days, he realizes that the king is not going to institute martial law to stop the March and that he'd won. Like, this is a dawning realization while he's in Milan that, like, oh **** we're getting away with this. So that has to be Donald Trump. And he's very there's some similarities where he was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What we did kind of shocked that this had worked. Mussolini starts scrambling to dress himself up as the revolutionary leader. It now kind of seemed like he was, and I'm going to quote now from the Warfare Historical network. Mussolini's own Milan newspaper office, where he was staying, was barricaded with huge rolls of new Sprint paper and barbed wire, and guarded by a curious mix of fascist police and army troops. His 2nd floor offices featured hand grenades and desk trays, and the flustered douche himself was seen brandishing a rifle. Melodramatically, he wrote in his 1928 autobiography. There was a rapid exchange of shots. I had my rifle loaded and went down to defend the doors. Bullets whizzed around my ears. This is all a lie. The reality is that the Milan police chief refused to even arrest him. The mayor and commander of the Royal Guard asked for a truce with the fascists and withdrew their men from around his office. There was no real crackdown taken on Mussolini directly whatsoever. Now, while his militia marched, they took over telephone switchboards, Telegraph offices, waterworks and other government buildings. Very little resistance to this. About 7 black shirts are shot dead by the army and various skirmishes during this period of time, and about a dozen people die. Over the course of the March on Rome, Mussolini gets increasingly confident. Phone calls start coming in from the Royal Palace from the king, but he refuses the first three calls from the king because Mussolini does understand how power works. And he knows that when you got him on the ropes, you want to you want to bring him a little bit closer, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Willing to make a call. I'm not going to take that first call. I'm going to take that second or that third call either. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get him close. Get him close. That's how you do it. So eventually he decided that his men had occupied enough territory that he felt confident the king was not going to turn around and shoot him as a traitor if he showed up in Rome. So on the night of October 29th, Benito Mussolini took a sleeper train from Milan to Rome for the soon to be dictator. The March on Rome consisted of a single 14 hour train ride, so he doesn't know marching. He takes a train right into the capital while his guys are marching and fighting. Giving us a long walk, bro. No, I'm not marching to Rome with the **** you talking about. So, 20th century bro. Not marching, we got trains now. Benito would later lie about every major aspect of the March on Rome. The reality is that about 7 blackshirts again were shot and a dozen people died once they were in power. The fascists claimed that 3000 people had been killed in vicious fighting for control of the capital was again just a lie to make it seem heroic. When he finally met the King, Mussolini's first words were Your Majesty will forgive my attire. I have come from the battlefield skin. You came from a lot, dude. Yo, two points for style, dog. Yeah. No, it's a good line. Is good for you. I just came from battle. Yeah, at the buffet. Like, where were you fighting? Where were you battling? I told the Army not to fight you. Yeah. So Victor Emmanuel has to have known Mussolini was lying about that, but he liked Mussolini. He considered him a quote man of purpose and he appointed him as Premier, foreign minister. And interior minister. On October 31st, the day after Mussolini's meeting with the king, his Blackshirts finally arrived in Rome. He had them turn around immediately and marched to the train station so they could go home. As the fascist columns withdrew, the king declared Mussolini has saved the nation. That is hilarious. Yeah, I recapped that Bush. I sent you all. Got what I needed. Then I sent you back. Did you say? And I said, yeah, that's great. It's a great position to be in. If you're Mussolini, he's really riding high right now because a lot of Italians agreed that he'd saved the nation because people are really ******* dumb. And again, you have to assume very little access to accurate news about what was happening. So antennas. Now the Roman middle class was overjoyed by the lack of violence and by the fact that the dreaded anarchy and the threat of a communist revolution had been avoided. The stock market rose on news of of Mussolini's power grab. And I should note here that on January 6th, 2021, the Russell 2000 index of small capitalization stocks rose 3.7% while the S&P 500 rose .6%. Now this had less to do with the stock market loving the fact that there had been an attempt to take over the capital and more to do with it loving stability, because January 6th ended with everybody repudiating the President and the certainty that there would be a transfer of power. And but that's kind of the same reason why the stock markets raised when Mussolini, like, took power. Because someone was in power, there was certainty, right. Yeah. That's that's I love that I love that you brought that up because like if you if you want to talk about. You know, big corporations, you know, one percenters, high money. They are still beholden to a stable government that will like, affirm and support their contracts. Like, if I got contracts all over the place and you breached this contract, I want to be able to sue the crap out of you. So I got to take you to a court. That means I have to have a government stable enough that says so, so, so, yeah, so, so, so it has. No. No moral value either way. I just need y'all to chill and if and if and if there's somebody that could stop it, you now that y'all agree. I'm cool. I don't care what you agree with. Just as long as you all agree so that my money can keep coming. So that's that, that, that, that point about the stock market. That's adult, man. That that's the type of stuff that, like, you know, I always, always cringe any, anytime, any leader. I don't care who you are. Say? Well, the stock market, rose. This is like, man, what the **** that guy gotta do now? They just want you all to, you know I'm saying. Like this? That doesn't. That's not the indicator that you that you say it is. Yep, it's not. And it's it's yeah, it's a sign. It's a sign that the people who are rich are confident they're going to continue to be rich. And that's that's that's where fascism's power traditionally comes from, and that is much from the rich as it does from the middle class. The middle class of Italy backed Mussolini for the same reason he meant stability, right? Maybe they weren't all fascists. Most of them weren't. Most of them had never really, like hadn't supported the fascist prior to him coming into power. But now that he was in power, it means the Communists don't going to admit win means I'm not going to lose my business. I'm not going to lose like whatever, like the guy, because I'm in the middle class, got **** to lose, right? Yes, that's what the middle class is. You're the ****. To lose class, yes. Now, yeah. The middle class was in Italy, as it has been in every country that's been taken over by Fascists, the chief base of fascist support. And this is true again everywhere fascism gains political power in March of 2016, and NBC survey found that only about 1/3 of Trump supporters in the primaries had a household income at or below the national median income of $50,000 a year. And that stayed more or less the same for the election. And again, you can look at the same kind of things. Happened in Germany? Yeah. It was the same class that supported him. Yeah, like, it's important. And again, another thing I love you just brought up brought this up too, because it's like when you're talking about somebody that lives below the poverty line. You don't have time to be listening to whatever the **** the politicians are saying. Like I'm trying to secure my next meal so there's not a this they don't. You don't have the luxury to go lobby and and canvas and do all the things that someone who has a, you know, liquid capital like leisure capital, be able to do. So that's the middle class, you know? I'm saying so, like, so yeah, just just, yeah. It's same thing like us critiquing our own. Kilo to be like, man, don't you can't just call this. You can't just say it was all these poor, these poor whites not put him in power because they hungry, they working, these poor people working, they got time for all this. You know, I'm saying anything. It's the ******* what the fascists are saying to the middle class, to the comfortable is saying like, you see that poor ************ who doesn't have time to think about any of this because he's living hand to mouth. The Communists are going to make that be you, you know you. That's the, that's the ******* pitch and it works every time. It it works well enough that it becomes a problem every time. Maybe it's not going to work this time. We'll ******* see. Because Trump wasn't bleeding middle class support in 2020. I don't know. We'll say he really was, man. Yeah, so that's good. We owe that to behind the ********. Thank you. Yeah. I take total credit for Biden's victory. Thank you so much. So yeah, fascism generally cloaks itself as a working class movement of laborers and hard men doing hard jobs. It's always the image, right the the imagery of like a guy working at a steel mill or some ****. But that's not where they're support actually comes from. The support of fascism comes from a lot of like the middle class and the a lot of the affluent, not all of the affluent, because a lot of the very rich are more establishment people. They're not going to back they'll back a fascist when they're in power because again, they don't want to lose their **** needs to be like, all you need. Yeah, they're. They're. Up until it becomes clear the fascists are going to win, they're, you know, they're gonna back whatever the order was previously. The middle class is scared and anxious and always being pushed from both directions. So they're the ones who really will go with the fascist. And the first person in history to really lay this out was Luigi Salva Torelli. Now he was an editorial writer for an anti fascist newspaper named La Stampa. I'm going to quote now from an article on the March of Rome by scholar Emilio Gentile talking about Luigi Salvatore Alli. And how he came to this conclusion quote a year before the March on Rome, Salva Torrelli understood that fascism was a new revolutionary movement, and that it organized and mobilized a new social class, the petite bourgeoisie, equally hostile to the proletariat and the upper middle classes. Salva Torelli had labeled fascism, reactionary Bolshevism, a danger today infinitely more real than Communist Bolshevism. He had sensed that fascist ambitions went beyond the bourgeoisie anti proletarian. The action and the protection of the middle class, the dictatorial ambition of fascism, Salva Torrelli wrote in December 1921, had already shown its face in parts of Italy where the Fascist party was imposing its dictatorial will by crushing opponents to whom they denied any political or civil rights, including the right to live. In July 1922, when not even Mussolini had thought about taking over power, Salva Torelli denounced the ongoing anti state attack perpetrated by fascism that was endangering the very existence of the Italian state. In order to establish a regime of violence throughout the country, immediately after the March on Rome, Salva Torelli stated that the fascist government was determined to establish A1 sided dictatorship because it did not want any political activity to be carried out outside of fascism. Salva Torrelli saw in fascism, as he wrote on November 1st, 1922, the True and proper characteristic of a political movement of a party organized for its own ends of a specific social class, and that aimed at the conquest of power on its own. Was determined to fling itself against the existing state in the name of the presumed greater good of the nation. Needed a breath after that one. Yeah, it's a lot there. There's a lot there. He suggested. Something that I the thought in that that. The thought never crossed my mind that. As there were so many big words, it's hard for me to nail down exactly where I heard it, but he's almost suggested the possibility of a two party system in a fascist state. When he was like this, fascism impresses. It was almost like he, it's it sounded redundant where he was kind of like this one party power fascist state as if it's possible to have a two party system in a process because that's at the time. At the time fascists were a part of the government, right. And a lot of people even a lot of like liberals were like, well they're not that dangerous. They're just one other party. They have their view. This is that that's that old thing of like, well they have an opinion and everybody gets to have their view and like we have to listen to them. They're they have. They get the freedom to speak their peace. And with salvage relaying is their peace. What they're saying, they believe is that only their opinion matters. And they'll kill you if you have a different one. Got it. So he's left them in the government. Yeah. So he's trying to say, are y'all here what he's saying? Yeah. Y'all. Really? Did you hear what he just said? Like, this is not just hear what he just said. Yeah. Yeah. If we let them, they will be the only party. Right. Got it. And he's and he's also saying like they are. Their strength comes from a class, right. And because the. A lot of the communists at the time had been like, had written off the fascists as any kind of real movement and had even written off the March on Rome. We'll talk about that later in the series. We're going to do a big episode at the end on sort of what we can learn from all this. But there was a big failure among a lot of people in the left and even anti fascists to see fascists as the threat that they really were because number one, they were so darn silly. But #2 like, well, you know, I'm looking at this from this Marxist analysis and it tells me that all these classes like. It it it it it informs it. I don't, I don't see this as a legitimate political movement that is speaking to a class that has a large body of the populace behind it. Yeah. So, OK, that was the piece I was missing. When you add the Marxists like glasses on there and you go, yeah, well, who's where do they fit? Like, where's the car? This can't be real because they don't fit him. None of these. And there's, there's this attitude again. We'll talk about this later among a lot of Marxists that, like, well, fascism is just the inevitable in the state of capitalism. And one of the things Saltarelli saying and a lot of things we say is like, that's not exactly true. Fascism is pro capitalism a lot of the time. It's also anti capitalism a decent chunk of the time. And that's how it gets a lot of people on board with it. Yeah, it's it's it is speaking to a specific class in the country who feels edged out by both sides, who feels oppressed by the rich, and who feels that the left is coming for what little they do have, right? That's who gets on board with this ****. And you have to see that. They are looking out for their own that that that they have like interests that they see being threatened like that they're this is not just some sort of like plot by the bankers to take power for themselves, right? Yeah. The the fascists are speaking to legitimate, you know even if they're wrong legitimately felt exactly like those are like, yeah, those are legitimate emotions that that you are actually in your body experiencing whether that's the reality like I say that. About like, yeah, there's this, this, you know, this discussion about like, well, you know, race is a social construct. Therefore it's not real. Therefore, racism is not real. And I'm like, OK, yes, you're right, race is a social construct. But what I'm experiencing in my body is real. It's, you know, I'm saying so I I love that. I love that because it's like, I that's that's what you can't dismiss about these people that are so riled up that they would storm a capitalist. It's that what they're experiencing in their bodies is exactly what you said. Is being is is you're pressed on both sides and. And yeah you feel that way. At least feel it at least. Yeah. This person is saying, yeah. These group of people are saying I feel you and I have an answer for you. Yeah. And I have an answer for you and it's let's kill the left and take over the government. You know, he's like, yeah. Easy. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why, you know, the 6th happened so. Mussolini. Uh takes office two weeks after the March on Rome on November when the buffet come back, buffet Warfe ready to leave. November 16th, 1922. He stands before the Chamber of Deputies to present his new list of ministers. So he picks out all the people who are going to run the government. All fascists. Now the new Prime Minister Mussolini, begins his speech to the Chamber of Deputies by attacking the nation's elected leaders, calling them old and deaf and incompetent, and he even threatened them with violence, stating with 300,000 armed men determined to carry out my orders, I could have punished those who have vilified and tarnished fascism. I could make this deaf and Gray hall. Filled exclusively with fascists, I could, but I have not, at least not for now. Said shut up. Shut up, gramps. I slapped the **** out of you now. He promised his assembled deputies that his new fascist Italy would ensure law and order, strengthen the military, and crush the left. The next day, the Chamber of Deputies conducted a vote of confidence, which Mussolini won 306 to 116. So again, he three, he says. Like, all I can ******* kill you if I want to. And they're like, yeah. Thumb up, I'll put it yes, I am voting aye for you. Maybe threaten your life. Yeah. I'm going to read a quote from an article by Emilio Gentile about anti fascism in Italy and about the March on Rome quote. Benito Mussolini could now claim that power was bestowed on him by Democratic means, even though it was claimed that many votes were cast out of terror and intimidation from the fascists, which he had literally threatened the entire chamber. Benito. Benito was the man of the hour. He was, in fact, imminently a product of a particular crisis, World War One, and a special social class, the petty bourgeoisie. Mussolini's capture of power was classic he was the right national leader at the right moment. By 1923, Mussolini's consolidation of power was complete. Italy was a fascist state, and any resistance to the regime from then on would take the form of mirror insurgency. In total, between 1918 and 1923, Italian anti fascists killed some 428 fascists. Meanwhile, Mussolini's blackshirts murdered at least 3000 people in the same. Most of those people were not anti fascists. They were members of trade unions, journalists, local politicians, anyone who stood in the way between fascists and ultimate power. And again, we've talked a bit about why the Italian anti fascist didn't succeed, and that's a longer conversation than we can have today. I think you're right that a lack of a a lack of something with momentum to oppose fascism, true momentum was a part of it. A lack of, uh, state support is another part of it. There's a thing that some folks on the kind of who are are. Anti fascist and anarchist activists in particular we'll talk about called the three-way fight, which is the idea that we're not just fighting against the fascists, we're fighting against the state and we're fighting against the fascists because the state is also deeply harmful and deeply injurious to life. And that was a particularly very strongly felt by people during the BLM risings of 2020. Right like we have these fascists, these proud boys and stuff coming in the street to do violence to us. We also have the cops doing it. We're in the three-way fight, right, very valid way to look at things. It's also an almost impossible. Situation to win because the fascists aren't in a 3 way fight the fascists. If they're smart, they're not dumb. Fascists sometimes are, yes, and maybe are. Fascists have taken a turn for the dumb, let's hope. But the smart fascists get to power with some degree of legitimacy and legality and then use the state to crush their enemies because they don't want a 3 way fight, right? And that's a problem because yeah, because yeah, because the government's just a weapon. It's not because the government the end goal, it's just a weapon. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Sheesh, man. I need a shower. Yeah, please tell me you're done. Yeah, no, I'm done. That's the end of episode one. Dog it's like the. It's just the party that feels like these people give you this when you're trying to to stop. When you're the one trying to stop an insurrection, it's like these people give you no, you have no safety, they give you no breaks. Like they you can never stop and take a breath because they're going to read that as weakness and then next thing you know. Somebody tying up Nancy Pelosi. And it's not that I'm a Nancy Pelosi fan. It's just you shouldn't be able to tie Nancy Pelosi up. You know, I'm saying how that should happen. That's not how it should happen. You feel me like I just did, and it's not that I'm a fan of the US government, however. However, there are worse things to live under. Worse things, yes. So there's just like there's, yeah, like you said, like you feel like you in a 3 way fight. And my fight is, is especially as as someone who would say organizationally and factually, my black life matters, right, is that that's all I'm trying to say is can I live? Like, *** **** it man, can I live, you know, and so. You, you the my goals. I feel like in a lot of ways. If it comes to like, how do I say this like. I'm not looking for. As a as a black person, if you will. I'm not. I'm just looking for my rights to be honored. Yeah, that's all I'm trying to say. Just honor my rights like I have. No, there's no platform of a reconstruction of the government short of just stop ******* killing. Like, let me just be a citizen like you, dog. Like, that's all. Trust he. Just let me be a citizen like you, bro. Like, that's all I'm saying. So, so when you when you try to, when you pit me against. A fascist movement that's saying well. No, our goal is to overthrow this whole thing and be in charge. And no, you don't get rights. And somehow the government choosing you, it's like, it's hard. It's almost like all. All I get to do now is I got homeboys that live in Atlanta and what they saying is they finish. Just grabbed a popcorn and watch the civil war between these fascists and the and the police. Like, I'm just going because it's like, I don't. I want to be on the side of the government, but the government on the side of me either, you know? I'm saying so it's just you. This in this weird predicament, but I know who I don't want to win just yeah, and this is where we get to the problem of. The side opposing the fascists has done a lot of good, and it is important to oppose fascists what's actually needed to beat them. Opposing them is one thing, and it can slow them down. What's needed to beat them is to provide something else that is not the state as it exists, because that's not working, but that you can also get. People on enough people on board with the fascists don't have oxygen anymore, right? Yeah, the fascist. It's like a fire, right? Where you've got a bunch of dry ******* brush and trees and **** and oxygen, and as long as you have those things, the fire is going to spread. And the way to counter that is to ******* pour some ******* water on it, you know? To reduce a good, excellent. That's a good analogy, man. You need to reduce the area in which it can spread. And it's human terrain, right. So by the only way to reduce the human terrain, the **** can spread in is to give people something else. Yes. Yes. And they don't have anything, right? Yes. That's what I was going back to when you was asking me, like, why did this fail? I was like, they didn't give him nothing else. Yeah. It just said don't do this. Well, then what do we do? Because this **** that we got now ain't working so either. The government that led us into World War One. Or some people who are saying we should do what they're doing in Russia right now and that doesn't look great. And you know, most of the Liberals are like on the side of like, well, we'll just, we'll just keep tweaking the system that got us into World War One. And a lot of people are like, that doesn't seem good. All seem good either. I need a I need a I need an option D. Jake? Yeah? I'm poor. My government. I have no hope for the future. So, Jake, this guy is saying it'll be different. Doctor Jacob. Let's see if it's different. Yes, exactly. Like, it's like when you're watching a basketball game and it's your two least favorite teams playing and you want both of them to lose, but there isn't a way for one of them. Not like somebody has to win, so their body has to win. There has to be some sort of interference that makes it so that the game can't even happen. And, like, otherwise you're going to just pick your joke. Joke, you're Joe Biden, get stuck with Joe Biden. So you get the otherwise you get Joe Biden. Nobody wants that either. You know? That's like, that's bad. That's why I'm like, look like. Not say I'm glad nobody has suggested that, like Joe Biden is just a left wing. Like I mention of Trump to where some people know he is a consolation prize. Rise of the consolation prizes, we settle for Joe Biden like this thing ain't the coming Messiah. He he he the disciple. Bartholomew at best, barely conscious. Peter, John, my, like, this is so funny. So that's a deep cut boy. Listen, not even Paul. Cause like you, Timothy, you ain't even writing no book in the New Testament I'm tearing up in. My whole face is red. This is so, so funny. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a that's an evangelical joke. So that's the first part of this behind the insurrection. ************* one prop. Where can people follow you? Oh Lord, please follow me at prop. Hip hop on. All them. Thanks. Yeah, all the all of the Twitters and Instagrams you could my website. Profitpop.com. back slash coffee. Yeah, that is my website. And we do coffee stuff there. Got some pods. The politics were prop, which is political analysis. Just from like, you know, if you survived 8th grade. You understand geopolitics. You know, I just kind of giving you political analysis. Yeah, that's that's that's my, that's my things. And uh, we'll, we'll we'll be back soon. Robert we will be back soon. We'll be back to talk about the Munich Beer Hall putsch next week, and then we'll talk about some other ****. And then we're going to end this talking in broad about why fascists win when they win and why fascists lose when they lose. You're a gift to the world, Robert. Like, like, like socks? A nice pair of socks, right? Robert doesn't know how to take compliments as you never know. No, I'm just gonna run away from my computer now. Goodbye. That's the episode. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, this is La Monstra, a story of abomination and conspiracy. The story about the man who simply become known as. Lamaster. 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