WEBVTT - Part One: How The Liberal Media Helped Fascism Win 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:10.880 Also media what recording a video? Uh? And also audio? 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:15.040 My Michael Swain, our guest for today's podcast, Welcome to 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:16.760 Behind the Bastards. Michael, how are you? 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.520 How are you doing? Great? Buddy? No sinking, no clapping, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.600 the magic of just starting. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.040 Just starting right into it, you know, walls, walls and 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:28.160 balls together. 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.800 Last, Yeah, look at their asses because we're there, buddy. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.600 That's right. That's the only thing we are, is there? Michael? 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.960 You use OBS to record video. OBS is a program 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.640 that people who are using video for purposes like this use. 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.640 And what I've been thinking about it because you just 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:48.559 had a little issue with it and we're like, my 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.760 obs isn't isn't you know? Is flaring up or something. 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.640 It sounds like a disease, like an old person disease, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.480 like I got, I got my obs is fucked to 0:00:58.560 --> 0:00:59.720 hell and back, folks. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:07.080 I was thinking to sit down. Yeah, hey, when I'm. 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:17.760 Oh right, Michael, we're talking about Nazis. Nazis the Holocaust 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:19.640 bunch of a bunch of stuff that's less fun than 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:20.280 the house a bunch. 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.760 Yeah. The East India Company was awesome because it was 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.280 like some Dan Carlin ship. This was horrible. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.280 Oh, it is it is going to be horrible anyway, 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:39.200 cold open done, We're back, Michael. I technically like a 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.000 little it's not I mean, it's about Nazis, but it's 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.600 not just about Nazis. This episode is a script I 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.360 originally wrote about a year and a half. Two years ago, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.240 I got asked to go speak at Oxford Student Union, 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.720 which was great, lovely people. Grateful to the fellow who 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.200 invited me and set it up. Grateful to the the 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.680 Leftist club, the beleaguered Leftist club at Oxford who met 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:04.919 with me, very nice people. 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.520 Two questions, Sorry, did you wear shoes? I did? I? 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:09.679 Did you bring a machete? 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.120 No, you're not, Michael. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.440 You cannot bring them achetty to the UK. 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.480 They do not take kindly to any They're making kitchen 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.640 knives now that have blunt tips, so you can't stab 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:23.360 someone with them. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.280 Oh yeah, I saw the safety kitchen knives. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.720 Yeah yeah, yeah, that would not have gone over well. 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:29.640 But no. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.840 We tried to record it there and the between, like 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.520 the moving around a bunch and the actual size. Anyway, 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.440 the recording got fucked up, and then we recorded it again, 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.400 and the recording got fucked up again. When we had 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.280 another guest in, but it wound out being good because, 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.520 as you might be aware, I mean good's the wrong word. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.280 But as you're aware, there have been a massive series 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.480 of horrific war crimes that have been committed very recently. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.400 So I got to update this episode in a relevant 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.720 way because what's happening in Gaza is deeply relevant to 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.519 what we're talking about here, because these episodes are about 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.840 how the media responded to the rise of the Nazis 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.600 and the Holocaust in the nineteen thirties and forties, and 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.160 it's overall kind of a story about how particularly the 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:28.720 liberal media and multiple countries failed universally across the world 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.360 in its attempt to deal with and stop the rise 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:37.280 of fascism. And that's a worthwhile story because a lot 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.000 of the same families here in the US, a lot 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.279 of the same families who directed American media in particular 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.600 and failing to report properly on the Nazis, are still 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:53.360 running the most influential media outlets, and they're still failing 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.640 in the same ways. And I think this is useful 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.040 history for people to have. So, Michael, are you ready 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:05.600 to learn about how the liberal media is essentially incapable 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.640 of confronting fascism in a direct and meaningful. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:13.120 Way or something. You have to not already think that. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.920 But also I'm just reeling from the implication that I 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.279 was a backup guest on this topic. That's all I 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.480 can really focus on. So let's let's do the Nazis 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:23.440 thne we tried. 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.480 We recorded this last a year ago, but I I 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.960 after October seventh and everything that's happened since then, I 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:31.839 had to like rewrite. 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.400 No statute of limitation on my. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.440 Feelings, Michael, this is one of my best strips, Roberts. 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.680 I worked really hard on this, bro. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.799 This sounds amazing, It sounds fascinating. Don't let me stop. 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:44.279 You were my top draft pick. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.560 I mean, we were originally going to do a different 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.040 episode with you, but we had to wind up pushing 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.479 it a week so sure we had someone else on 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:54.080 the apartheid. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:57.279 Yeah, so I'm golden. 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.039 Look, this is just that's just how it's going to happen, Okay. 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.440 On February seventeenth, twenty seventeen, The Washington Post, one of 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.600 the ussay's chief papers of record, changed their slogan to 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:14.200 democracy dies in darkness. If you can remember that this 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.839 was right at the start of the Trump era. Everybody 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.159 was like real, you know, the whole resist thing was 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.920 real gung ho, and I think they were playing into that, right, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.920 let's get the let's get the libs really fired up 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.240 to enjoy and pay money for our content. By acting 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.640 like we're we're the last bulwark against the rise of 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:33.960 fascism in America. 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.240 It sounds like some Emperor Palpatine is somehow backshit. 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:43.680 It does. It's absolutely a George Lucas slide. Yeah, it 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.200 was updated in there. And also it's just not true. 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.560 Democracy doesn't die in darkness. Democracy dies because you have 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.800 like a million different multicolored lights all shooting into everyone's 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.800 eyes at the same time. It's like a fucking club floor, right, 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.279 Like that's how democracy dies. Everyone is too disorient to 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:05.479 realize what's happening. Anyway, this new slogan was updated and 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.520 their online mast had immediately and added to print copies 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.960 of the paper a week later, and the reaction was mixed. 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.200 A writer for Pro Publica called it awesome at south 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.200 By Southwest. A few weeks later, New York Times executive 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.760 editor Dean Baca compared it mockingly to an ad for 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.159 the next Batman movie. And we're not mostly going to 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.919 be nice to the Times in this episode, but I 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.880 think back actually got that very correct. That does sound 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.000 like a like a Nolan Batman line. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:33.680 Now. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.800 Fears that the US was lurching towards a new authoritarian 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.320 crisis brought with them a surge of new paid subscribers 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.200 to both The Post and The Times. Ag Solzberger, publisher 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.360 of the New York Times, used some of that money 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.200 to run a commercial at the twenty seventeen Academy Awards, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.719 wanting the nation's most connected celebrities. The truth is more 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:57.360 important now than ever now. Both slogans depict a view 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.520 of legacy media that news media executive is want to 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.400 push of a battle of an embattled forth estate that's 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.760 the bulwark against fascism and corruption. Very little evidence supports 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.560 the claim that our media institutions have ever worked this way. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.440 The twenty first century has seen an unprecedented global expansion 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.520 in news media, and yet Freedom House, a DC based 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:22.800 nonprofit that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, calculates that 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.239 over the last sixteen years, the number of people living 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.360 in societies that are considered free has declined by more 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:33.080 than twenty five percent, which is like a pretty startling number. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:38.280 I would say of unfree people, although you know what 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.400 is freedom? I'm not free? You know. I think RFK 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.239 Junior would agree with miss I'm not free. Road killed 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.960 in every state, you know? So what use is liberty 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.320 if I can't eat, if I can't scrape a deer 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.880 carcass off the higher or Utah? What, Sophie? 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.840 Look a car in every garage, a turkey in every pot, 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.960 and a worm in every brain. And amserves that. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.000 Look, are you going to say that if we all 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.400 had brain worms this country would vote worse? Because I 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:06.840 don't know that. 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:12.320 I think we're already rocking a sixty forty on that, brother. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.240 Yeah, yeah, I do think a significant portion in this 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.160 country has parasites. 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.320 Said they're prase toxoplasms. 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:24.040 Yeah. Yeah. So the decline in people living in free 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.200 countries is initially sharpest in what they referred to as 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:31.920 authoritarian states like Belarus in Syria, but in recent years 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.839 it has increasingly impacted nations with long stable democratic traditions. 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.840 These countries also happen to have the largest and most 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:43.640 active news media sectors. Editors from prestigious publications like The Times. 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:47.520 In the Post talk a lot about the importance of objectivity, right, 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.960 in other words, not being a journalist like me, you know, 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.920 who repeatedly is open about the fact that I think 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.760 the Republican Party needs to be burnt to the ground. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.920 But Gallup continue used to register American trust in the 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.400 media at or near record lows. Twenty twenty two was 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:07.800 the first time that the percentage of Americans with no 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:09.959 trust at all in the media was higher than the 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.640 percentage with a great deal or fair amount of trust combined. So, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.319 whatever you want to say about the value of objectivity, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.760 I think the fact suggests that all of the focus 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.120 our legacy media has on being quote unquote objective has 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.160 led to a situation in which absolutely no one trusts them. 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:31.960 So I don't know, Well, it seems like you're also 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:32.760 doing a good job. 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.480 Definitely coming from a filmmaking background, it's like an old 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.400 saw that there is no objective way to make any 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.480 kind of film, documentary or not, because you are a 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.760 human filtering things through your perceptive process and making art 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.439 is a sequence of decisions, so you can't not do that. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.840 So in a way, it's more effective and transparent to 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.400 be alied. Yeah, I'm coming from this place. Here's what 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.640 I've always Yeah. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.760 Yeah, I agree with Werner Herzog on this. We're not 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.520 flies on the wall. We should we should aspire to 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.640 be the hornets that sting, you know, like that's the 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:11.880 actual purpose. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.160 I just I broke with him ever since he refused 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.160 to show us that bare footage show us. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:24.320 I want to watch that man die. Yeah, that's that's 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.240 a great reaction to Timothy Treadwell's life story, which we 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:29.920 should have been able to see. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:30.440 Why not? 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:38.120 Yeah, So these facts, you know that this obsession with 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.440 objectivity has at least coincided with a collapse in trust 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.440 in the news media are not divorced from the actions 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.320 of the editors and publishers of these great legacy companies. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.280 Roughly a year after The Post changed their slogan you know, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.760 democracy dies in darkness, they accepted an editorial from recip 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.359 Type Airdwin, the authoritarian leader of Turkey who currently imprisons 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.840 more journalists than any other world leader. This is relevant 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.240 because his op ed bore the title Saudi Arabia still 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.040 has many questions to answer about Jamal Koshovii's killing and 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.520 yes they do, but you shouldn't be the one saying it. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.000 The guy, the guy who kills and imprisons more journalists 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:28.040 than anyone, shouldn't be complaining about the murder of a journalist. Yeah, yeah, Like, 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.960 what are we doing running this ad? Was there no 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:33.720 one else who could write that story? 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.120 Was there nobody else? Well, there were three spider men, 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:39.840 but they were busy pointing at each other. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.559 The Times, obviously, during the same period, has continued to 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:52.160 run a blistering series of irresponsibly sourced articles on transgender healthcare, 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.360 which has helped to fuel a right wing eliminationist crusade 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.760 against trans people. We're Both Glad, a queer advocacy organization, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.640 and several thousand New York Times contributors wrote letters complaining 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:09.040 about this management dismissed their concerns they weren't being objective enough. 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.840 Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger did make a personal statement 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.040 when one of his reporters was allegedly spit on over 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.880 this issue. The murder of Brionna Gay, a transgender sixteen 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.920 year old in the UK, did not merit any direct 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.079 comment from Sulzburger. You know, I think it's worth kind 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:31.520 of looking at it like that none of these claims 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.400 about like, well, we have to be objective, you know, 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.120 it's people. It's important for us to remain trustworthy. They're 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.000 never consistent about it. Right, There's certain things we can 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.679 we'll try to be objective about. But you know, when 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.640 there's an opinion that the people who own the paper have, 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:49.800 that's going to be the paper's opinion, and we're just 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.040 going to pretend like that's objectivity. And this is the 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.440 reality that you find when you analyze the responses of 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.440 the liberal press in Wymer Germany, in pre Mussolini Italy, 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.679 and in the United States in the twenties and thirties. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:08.160 It's kind of sobering how direct the comparisons are, because 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.520 rather than being opponents to fascism, these publications were at 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:16.320 best ineffectual witnesses to disaster and at worst enablers of 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.640 that disaster. We're going to talk about a lot of 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.000 different newspapers and how they fucked up, but we're going 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.199 to start in Italy in the period from World War 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.600 one's end in nineteen eighteen to Mussolini's March on Rome 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.760 near the end of nineteen twenty two. This is generally 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.600 broken up by historians into two eras. You've got the 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.520 Red Years, which saw powerful working class movements arise and 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.880 try to do revolutionary activity, and then you've got the 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.120 Black Years, which saw a fascist counter movement boil up 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:50.000 in response and eventually seize power. Error At Goachman from 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.440 Princeton has done the most accessible analysis of how liberal 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.400 newspapers and pundits responded in both of these periods, and 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.640 Goachman primarily analyzes Les Stampa, which was the most influential 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.920 newspaper for like social democrat Italians right the kind of 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.760 progressive left, and also Italian Illustration, which was a weekly 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.679 paper that kind of was more geared towards the middle 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.640 class center right. In modern US terms, Lestampa is something 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.120 like the New Republic or maybe jacomin An Italian Illustration 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.480 is like The Times or the Post. The Red Years 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.120 were characterized by two large scale attempts at a general strike, 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.640 the first of which occurred in nineteen nineteen and was 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.880 centered around protesting the involvement of Allied governments in the 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:37.360 Russian Civil War. Neither paper supported the strike, claiming a 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.640 general solidarity with labor, but complaining that the strike would 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.720 destroy Italy's collective wealth. And we're not talking about like 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.320 an open ended like with the writer's strike right where 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.320 it is scary because it's like we don't know when 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.240 this is going to end. We don't know how long. 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.400 You know, people are going to have to be out 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.800 of work. You know it's necessary, but it's a frightening 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.120 thing to contemplate. This was a two day strike meant 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.320 to sort of a like we're trying to make a statement, right, 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.160 but none of the papers were willing to endorse even 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.760 something that limited. They Lestampa argued that it would have 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.960 damaging effects on the national economy and quote would be 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.520 a disaster for all bourgeoisie and proletarian alike. And again 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.960 we're talking two days here, like you can't you can't 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.000 go without this for two days. 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.280 Did they have an argument for how the proletariat would 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.320 suffer beyond will punish you. 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:32.120 No, not at all, just that like this two day 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:39.120 strike would be so devastating to the economy because proletariat Yeah, okay, yeah, 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.480 you know Italy in the nineteen thirties, just the thing, 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.200 or in nineteen twenties, things are moving so quickly economically, 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.320 you know, it's the New York of the Mediterranean right. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.320 I can't throw brakes on this grave train. Things are 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.360 moving too fast in there. You can't. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.160 Yeah, we got a lot of boss to to move. 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:01.240 Care for a long. 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.560 Tomato sauce, But that's a whole different thing. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.240 So Meanwhile, Italian illustrations coverage focused more on fears about 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.520 communism in Russia and connections between like Italian socialists and 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:18.080 their Russian and Hungarian counterparts. Lestampa, with its more working 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.720 class readership, focused on the disruption of the strike, and 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.920 Italian illustration attacked the strike movement for its purported ties 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.080 to radicals who were, like oftentimes fighting in the East 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.280 actively because the Russian Civil War is still going on. 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.320 In September of nineteen twenty, the Federation of Metallurgical Workers 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:39.160 or FIOM, ceased negotiations with factory management after being refused 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.360 a new wage agreement. To avoid a strike and the 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:47.440 economic consequences of a strike, workers occupied factories and defended 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.680 them from their employers with armed red guards. This is 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:55.400 a very cool chapter of Italian politics, right, Like these 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.920 laborers take control of their places of business and put 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.600 up armed guards in order to like fight it out 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.800 with the cops and the fascists if they try to 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.960 take them back. Now. Writers for Italian Illustration were immediately 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.639 dismissive of this movement. They described the laborers who occupied 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:16.520 the factories they worked in as little boys playing shopkeeper, grocer, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:21.800 salesman and sailor, which is like this is always what 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.480 they did. Was like, well these these left Yeah, well 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.960 they're they're taking over docs too. Okay, sure you get 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.040 to day, like you look at the campus protests, you 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.480 get a lot off. Like these little kids don't understand 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.639 the world. You know, they're playing and being adults, they 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.400 don't really get it. But in this case it's like, well, 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.040 these guys are literally the ones who work in the factories, 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.840 Like they're not little boys playing as like whatever. They 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.520 do this job for a living. That's why they've taken 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:50.080 the factories, the. 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.720 Means of production. I believe I've heard somewhere. 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.679 Yeah, yeah, it's just it's wild. It's wild how consistent 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:03.200 the attacks are, but also how utterly divorced from reality, 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.000 especially in this period they were. Now, the occupations were 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.560 portrayed as a fundamentally childish thing, evidence of the quote 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.000 infancy of a naive new society that mimicked the toils 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.760 of grown up society. And again, these are the grown 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.480 ups who were toiling. I don't know how this is mimicry. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.240 These are the men working in those factories. 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.320 By definition, you are a writer, which I do for 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.480 a living, and it's sad in a factory. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.800 I can tell you what are you talking about? Yeah? Yeah. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.560 The occupations sparked a violent reaction from Italy's far right 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.640 street movement. Fascist gang attacks on workers and occupied factories 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.320 grew increasingly common, alongside police raids. This created a sense 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:52.840 of constant paranoia within the Red Guards, as Mussolini's Squadristi's 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:57.119 took to carrying out what they call putative expeditions against 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.560 labor organizations. Historian Angelo Hasket describes them as treating the 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:06.280 murder of workers as sport. Now, despite this hideous situation, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.440 Lestampa and Italian illustration were united in treating the fascist 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:15.120 violence as secondary to the problem of organized labor. Red Guards, 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:19.400 they argued, had provoked gunfights with the fascists by their 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.399 very existence, right, you can't blame the fascists for wanting 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.399 to attack them. The fact that they existed were trying 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.120 to defend themselves, justifies them being attacked, right. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.840 Well, they're just taking it a priori of like, surely 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:38.000 we all agree it's always right to enforce the status 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.320 quo and return to normalcy, yes, or like yeah, that 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.159 goes without saying. And you're like, well, we are actually 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.880 trying to alter some of we wanted. 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.480 We wanted to change things in a way that was possible. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:54.080 Well you're evil for that, right Zaly And it's I mean, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.359 it is really that direct. Liberal columnist Renato Simoni wrote 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.920 a column in which he argued that the real victims 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.879 in this situation in which communists and socialists were being 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.760 murdered like lit on fire, shot to death in their 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:14.399 own factories, wrote yes, yes, Renado, somebody is like, the 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.119 real victims here are middle class liberals who have to 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:18.560 deal with disruption. 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.600 Yeah, they're traffic, dude. They there were twenty five minutes 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.639 late to work because of these kids. These kids are 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.680 just doing this as a fan. You know, they just. 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:33.000 Love getting shot to death by fascists, you know. For 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.920 the one actual line from this column is oh, how 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.879 tragic is the life of the poor bourgeoisie in Italy. 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.200 You can't like, you couldn't you couldn't even make fun 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.720 of it, while. 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.560 The subtext is quite literally let the meat cake like, yeah, 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.399 let's historical echo of it. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.439 Yeah, yeah, I hope, I hope when the war got on, 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.040 his house got hit by a bomb. I'll say that much. 0:20:59.200 --> 0:20:59.520 Sure. 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.720 While this was going on, liberal papers treated Mussolini's rise 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:08.800 as concerning and the fascists is problematic, but also less 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.760 of a direct threat than the excesses of the far left. 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.960 A degree of fear may also have stopped larger publications 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.080 from taking a more active role in the struggle for 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.879 the reigns of Italy's government. During the first half of 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:25.000 nineteen twenty one, fascists destroyed seventeen left wing newspapers and 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:30.200 printing presses. Again, they are literally just killing journalists and 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.639 destroying peace by piece. The free press in Italy, and 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.960 the free press in Italy, the liberal free press in Italy, 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.440 the press that has the largest circulation, is largely being like, well, 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:42.720 you got to understand why they're doing it. You know, 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:49.159 there's a lot of economic you know, what's the disenfranchisement. 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:51.240 You know among this population, they're anger. We have to 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:56.680 understand their anger. Right, It's very familiar bullshit, but it's 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.680 interesting to see it happen while the fascists are actively 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.880 killing the media. In the summer of nineteen twenty one, 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.480 various left wing armed groups and leftist war veterans formed 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:12.080 a united militia to combat the fascists, the Rditi del Popolo. 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.199 Now we noted day that these people were organizing a 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.720 defense against Mussolini during basically the last moment in which 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.600 any defense would have been possible. And I want to 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.639 read a paragraph here from Goachman's piece. Lestampa's coverage of 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.600 the Rdidi del Popolo's demonstration in Rome aimed to delegitimize 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.639 the newly formed worker's self defense group, doing so in 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.880 a manner reminiscent of the paper's condemnation of the Red 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.120 Guards that were active during the factory occupations of September 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.960 nineteen twenty. La Stampa emphasized the combativeness of some of 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.080 the workers who were present. For example, the Royal Guards 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.399 had no choice but to arrest the most quarrelsome and 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.439 hot headed of the demonstrators. Additionally, while describing instances of 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:55.920 violence involving a young man struck with a blow to 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.120 the head falling to the ground, or a manual laborer 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:02.280 struck with his hand on his bloody head. The newspaper 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.879 employed the passive voice and thus obscured the direct agency 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.680 of the policeman and the fascist SQUADRISTI in the events. 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:11.680 You can't write that fascists hurt somebody, just like you 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.320 can't write that cops hurt somebody. Someone simply got hurt, 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:21.200 you know. Yeah, and we'll talk some more about this 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.639 trend that absolutely doesn't persist to the present day. But 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:27.720