WEBVTT - Mussolini's March on Rome: The First Fascist Insurrection 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.920 Hello, Hello, Hey. I don't know if you heard, but 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.840 my podcast Checking It has been nominated for the a 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.800 CP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Lifestyle and 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:16.159 Self Help Podcast. I'm grateful for the nomination. I I 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.400 almost didn't even do a podcast because I was just 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.680 wandering there are thousands of podcasts out there and why 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.400 is my voice needed? But the nomination from the a 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.720 CP lets me know that I made the right choice, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:30.800 and I encourage you to do Don't worry if there 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.800 are thousands of something else that you want to do. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.440 No nobody has your sauce, so listen. 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I'm Zoe Deschanel and I'm 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.600 so excited to be joined by my friends and cast 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.680 mates Hannah Simone and Lamar and Morris to recap our 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.400 hit television series New Girl. Join us every Monday on 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.000 the Welcome to Our Show podcast, where we'll share behind 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.119 the scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes. Each week, 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.840 we answer all your burning questions like is there really 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.440 a bear in every episode of New Girl? Plus you'll 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.320 hear hilarious stories like this, that was one of your 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:52.440 things you brought back from Yeah, all professional basketball players. Yeah. 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.720 Listen to the Welcome to Our Show podcast on the 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.160 I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:12.080 your podcasts. What's overthrowing my democratically elected stay. I'm Robert Evans. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.840 This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the worst 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.840 people in all of history. And we are, of course 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:20.960 recording in the immediate wake of what I think can 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.480 fairly be called an insurrection by fascist dominated right wing 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.320 militants UM. And in the immediate wake of that, I 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.359 sat down with my producer Sophie Sophie say Hi. Now 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.280 not literally sit down together, because of the plague. But 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.639 we we got on a text chat and I was like, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.960 you know, this fascist insurrection against the democratically elected government 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.840 has a lot of similarities with other fascist insurrections against 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.280 democratically elected governments. Perhaps we should talk about the history 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.800 of fascist insurrections against democratically elected governments in order to 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:55.960 better prepare people for what needs to be done in 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.080 the wake of this to stop them from succeeding the 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.000 next time. And of course, once we had that idea, 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.480 the only person we could possibly bring on was our 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.359 good friend Jason Petty a k A. PROP. What what 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.720 the lick read? What's up with that failed nation? Stay? 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:15.360 How y'all feeling like literally I think I text Prop 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.000 and I was like, hey, I want to do this, 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:21.800 and like it was like yes, yeah, no brainer. There's 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:26.359 like they're so like you know, Robert myself, anybody else 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.280 who has like a seventh grade level understanding of history 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.760 has been like kind of flaring their arms like crazy 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.880 scientists in every movie that's like, y'all, the aliens are coming, guys, 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.720 I don't understand. How come nobody is seeing us telling y'all, 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.880 we're standing on our heads yelling at you like, this 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:51.080 is point for point, like bar for bar, point for point, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.320 We've seen this before and I don't understand what you 0:03:55.360 --> 0:04:01.560 don't understand. Yeah, how did this? Because I've been warning 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:06.520 about this for quite a while and uh that it 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:10.320 could happen here, and people continuously are like, I can't 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.680 believe you predicted this, And it's like nobody predicted this. 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.880 Everyone who was paying attention was like, Oh, this is 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.240 obviously going to happen because thousands of people are promising 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.760 to do this. Yes, it's like the dog. My favorite one, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:27.680 my favorite meme going around was one where Ron Burgundy 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.680 he was like, wow, that estimated slowly over the past 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:37.320 ten years, Like yeah, I know, I can't believe these 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.640 people did exactly what they said they was gonna do. 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:44.680 This is crazy. Yeah, it's it's very frustrating. Um. And 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.800 so you know, the reason we decided to do the 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.679 special mini series Behind the Insurrections is that I think 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:58.720 historically that's what this is called. That you're listening to insurrection. Yeah, 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:00.480 you and I did a similar thing this year when 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.720 the uprising against the police started, where we kind of 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:04.360 talked about the history of the police and I thought 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.760 that was useful to inform people both the context of 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.280 why folks were angry for a lot of folks who 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.640 maybe had never really thought that much about the police 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.800 and didn't understand all the hatred um. And I also 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.040 thought it was useful because understanding, you know, the history 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.280 of something that you want to fight is useful in 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.479 fighting it, um, whether it's the police state or a 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:28.040 fascist insurrection. And understanding what other fascists have done throughout 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.479 history and where they've succeeded and failed, and how the 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.560 people opposing those fascists have succeeded or failed is important 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.719 both for us to know what's coming next and to 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.520 avoid making the same mistakes that other people made in 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.080 the past that led to them being ruled by fascists, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.280 which I'd like to avoid. So naturally, we're gonna start 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:51.960 with Rome, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're about We're gonna 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:58.040 be starting with my old friend Benito, m Um big 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:05.920 Benny as no one has ever any move Yeah yeah. 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.240 The thing that I like, I mean, we're gonna get 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:12.720 into this, but like off jump the in in my 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:18.320 hopes to like, you know, help people figure out ways 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.960 in roads too, you know, their family members who have 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.360 been cooked by this like fascist movement is like is 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.440 dig inside of you and understand what it feels like 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:37.520 to be disenfranchised and what it feels like to feel 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.760 like you've been left behind by those that are supposed 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.400 to take care of you. And if you can understand that, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:50.920 you know, coupled with a person having really non powerful 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.000 antennas to know that they're being fed bullshit, you know 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:58.440 what I'm saying. Um, then I feel like you're you're like, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.880 you're you're starting to get an owners manual asked to 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.280 like how to not let yourself and you trying to 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:08.560 stop a fascist regime not incensing and creating martyrs out 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:14.000 of them and confirming their feelings that uh, you know, 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.360 airby against them. You know what I'm saying. It's just 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.640 it's a matter of like getting behind that and being like, Okay, 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.560 if this election was stolen, that would suck. You're right, 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.600 that would suck if that was true. It's yeah, not 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:32.440 though it's not, Yeah, it's not, it's not. It's like, yeah, 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.000 I mean, if a bunch of Satan worshiping pedophile wizards 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.960 were eating all of our children, that would be a problem. 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.080 We should fight that. But that's not happening. It's just 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:46.240 not true. Bro. Yeah, the real pedophiles in power are 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.760 more like the guy you think is the Second Coming. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.000 But yeah, yeah, so let's let's let's talk about old 0:07:56.040 --> 0:08:00.320 old Benito Mussolini. UM moves. I started thinking about NATO 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.120 as I was watching live stream footage of people breaking 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.760 through the capital barricades and into offices with zip ties 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.280 and weapons. UM. And I know that while this was happening, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.320 in the immediate wake of it, a lot of people 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.680 started bringing up historical comparisons, and unfortunately, I think a 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.760 ton of those historic comparisons were bad. We're the wrong ones. 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:21.640 To make a good example of this would be a 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:23.840 ton of people who compared the events of the sixth 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.040 to Krystal knocked the Night of Broken Glass. UM. And 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.080 I think everyone here knows what that is. For those 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:35.120 that don't listening, it was a pegram, which is a 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.040 racial amass, racial assault like on members of a specific 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.720 race basically UM. That was instituted by the Nazi government 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.480 against Jewish people in Germany. Hundreds of synagogues and Jewish 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.080 owned businesses were burnt down on the space of a night. UM. 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.520 Hundreds of people were killed. UM. And it was a 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:57.199 nationwide racial attack carried out at the government's behest. Right. Um, 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.360 that's not what we saw on the set. That's not this. 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.000 Yeah and yeah, probably the most prominent person to make 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.520 that comparison was our current governor or former governor of 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.920 California and current Arnold Schwartzenegger Arnold Schwarzenegger um, whose video 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.400 otherwise had some really good stuff in it about Yeah, 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:14.960 I was gonna say I kind of dig it in 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.000 the sense of, like the way he was talking about 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.880 the remorse of people that was a part of it. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.040 I think if he was gonna pull the Austria card, like, 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.480 it would have been a better although miss Leny's a 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.400 better parallel. But yeah, when um, when they burned the 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.120 parliament right before, Yeah, that's a more better comparison, you 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:41.360 know what I'm saying. Then, Yeah, absolutely, Yea has a 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.080 great TikTok content. He's got like a pet donkey that 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:49.679 follows him around. I'm sure he does. He's definitely like 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.840 the like the meme of like, you know, when it's 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.680 heartbreaking that the worst person, you know, it's an excellent point, 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.880 makes a really good point. Yeah, great point, Roley, And 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.280 I think his best point was just like, how you 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.040 know the victims of fascism continued long after the war, 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.080 including the children of Nazis who you know were abused 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.080 by parents and stuff. Great point to make wrong about 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.000 Christal Knock. When we're talking about actually good historic comparisons 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.160 and valuable ones to what happened on the sixth in 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.200 d C. There are a few. One of them, as 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.400 you noted, was the burning of the Austrian Parliament, which 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.320 I think we're going to talk about a bit later 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.439 in this series. Um. But and other folks have kind 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.959 of much more aptly, I think, compared what happened in 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.600 the sixth to uh the Munich Beer Hall push, which 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.160 was Adol Hitler's first attempt to seize power, And there's 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.600 a lot of good reasons to compare that to the sixth. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:40.920 It's not really a perfect comparison. None of them are, 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.280 um in part because when Hitler tried to overthrow the 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.199 government starting in Munich, he was a political rabble rouser 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.920 with no power who was trying to spark a mass revolution. 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.120 And on January six it was like tens of thousands 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.840 of the president's fans, including a lot of police officers, 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:58.800 active duty soldiers and elected leaders who tried to take 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.800 over the capitol. It's a bit different. So for looking 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.679 for a better historic parallel to January six, I think 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.200 we might be better served by going back a year 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.000 before the nineteen Beer Hall putch, when a completely different fascist, 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.800 Benito Mussolini lad what came to be known as the 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:19.240 March on rome Um. A lot of really good comparisons 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:20.800 to what's happened, a lot of good lessons in the 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:25.000 March of rome Um. So most people good before you 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.600 start is just if you could it's you never really 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:31.480 want to like reach into the past and draw like 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.240 direct lines if you will, But if you could think 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.600 to yourself, just as a general grid, if in the 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.319 story you own the side of Mussolini, you probably on 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.640 the wrong side of history. I think we can say 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.320 that completely. So now as you continue think about your 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:53.200 position in this and you that might be able to 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.199 tell you which side of history you should be all 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.360 right now anyway going and if you're if you're rightfully 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.000 on the side of history, that's like, well, I don't 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.520 to stand with Mussolini, which I think the vast I 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:04.640 think the vast majority of people listening to this are 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.520 already there. I think one of the things this teaches 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.760 is why the people who didn't want Mussolini to wind 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.880 up in charge failed, you know, and and it's important 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.800 to know that as well. Right. Um, So, most people 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.200 are probably broadly familiar of Benito Mussolini, but because of 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.520 how history went down, he tends to be remembered mostly 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.679 as like Hitler's ridiculous and kind of sad sidekick, like 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:32.280 the least threatening dictator on the axis side. Um, Mussolini 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.600 doesn't wind up as like the frightening villain in a 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.319 lot of movies, right, you know, yeah, that's good. I 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.480 ever thought of it like that, but yeah, yeah, because 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:42.720 it's like you're just like, oh you oh yeah, you 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.640 Hitler light, unless you was in unless you was in it, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.920 unless you was in Italy. Yeah, I mean even then 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:51.800 Italy would have been it would have been better to be, 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.040 you know, a Jewish person in Italy than in Germany. 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.840 Not a high bar, you know, the lowest bar in 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:03.000 history actually minimal hum. But yes, he gets this kind 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.760 of reputation of just being like incompetent and the junior 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.720 partner to Hitler and not very frightening. And that really 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.400 misses a lot of the history and what what people 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.160 at the time when Mussolini rose to power thought, because 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.800 Hitler actually in some ways idolized Mussolini. Um, and he 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.440 patterned his career off of Mussolini's career. The Munich Beer 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.000 Hall Pusch was inspired directly by the March on Rome. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:32.880 Mussolini was not just the first um like Mussolini was 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:37.000 the first fascist dictator. He was the man who created 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:41.640 fascism as a political ideology that actually took power. Right. 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.280 We talked about Gabrielle de Nunzio, who kind of invented 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.760 a lot of the ideas that became fascism as a 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.480 and who was a contemporary of Mussolini's. But Mussolini is 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.840 the guy who made fascism work for the first time. 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.000 And when I say work, I mean actually seized power, 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.920 not that is a good government or anything. Um. He 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.239 was the first fascist who seized power from a functional democracy. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.760 So he's he is not an incompetent buffoon. And you 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.360 kind of you it behooves you to understand how he 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.160 succeeded in the way that he did. Um. We're gonna 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:15.960 do a full set episodes on his life at some 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.280 point on behind the Bastards. But since we're just focused 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:19.840 on the march on Rome today, I'm gonna give a 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.000 little cliffs notes of Benito's life prior to him coming 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.720 to power. So Benito aml car Andrea Mussolini, which is 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.400 quite a name. That is a mafia boss right there, 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.680 except for the Andrea, right, except for that Andrea have 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.640 baptizes christening they gave him Andrea. Yeah, either that or 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:41.800 it's like a boy named Sue situation, and it turns 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:46.400 out that's actually a bad idea. Yeah. Uh. So he 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.360 was born on July three in a small Italian town 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:52.080 that I'm not going to try to pronounce right now. 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.720 His father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith and a socialist. He 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.960 named Benito after Mexican President Benito Warez, who's the name 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.000 sake of Uarez and who was the first indigenous president 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.080 of Mexico. Um and was a famous liberal you know. 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.960 Um I thought that was interesting, super inter Yeah yeah, 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.280 uh yeah, in nineteen o two. So that's like his background. 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.800 He goes a very left wing right like your parents 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.760 are naming you after the liberal indigenous president of Mexico, 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.720 Like that's that's quite a thing. That's a flex right there. Yeah, 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.760 what a pivot? Yeah yeah, this guy is one of 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.400 the great all time historic pivots, you know. Um. In 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.960 nineteen o two, Benito fled to Switzerland to avoid compulsory 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.440 military service. He became active in the Italian socialist movement 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:39.640 from Afar, and he grew obsessed with the writing of 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.720 syndicalist Georges Morel, who believed that capitalist democracy needed to 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.720 be overthrown by a combination of general strikes and violent 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.880 direct action. So he's he's a socialist's a leftist, but 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.360 he's a fan of these guys who are like, we 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.720 need a revolution and violence is okay in that revolution. Right. 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.480 That's like a big, big chunk of his early ideological upbringing. 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.640 In nineteen o four, or Benito returned to Italy under 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.840 a general amnesty for draft dodgers in exchange for which 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.440 he's he had to serve in the military for two years. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:09.400 He did his time, he got out, and he became 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.320 a left wing journalist and a fire brand, participating in 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.160 a nineteen eleven riot protesting Italy's imperialist war in Libya. 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.800 He did night or five months in prison for this, 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.960 So not just like a talker, Like he puts his 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.360 skin in the game and he does time protesting and 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:29.320 imperialist war. Dang all right, okay, yeah, yeah he was, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.040 he was. He was not like wishy washy about this stuff. 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.120 I guess it's the point I'm making. So as a 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.240 hardcore leftist, Mussolini hated the monarchy, which in Italy at 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:38.960 the time was similar in its kind of power to 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.360 the British monarchy. Italy is a constitutional monarchy at this point, 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.360 so more or less a democracy. But they've got a 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.440 king and he has some power. Um. In nineteen twelve, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.560 Mussolini stated the king is nothing more than a useless 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.000 citizen and the Italian flag is fit only for a 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:58.960 dung heap. Yeah, burn it all down, burn it all 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:03.040 down kind of guy. Yeah, yeah, very much, very much. Now, 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.040 it may seem odd that the first fascist dictator was 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.480 a committed left wing activist in his youth, but it's 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.520 really not that strange. This is a pattern that we 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.680 see repeating itself over and over throughout the history of fascism. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:15.719 In more recent times, just to talk about stuff that's 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.560 happened in the last like four years, Jason Kessler, who's 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.240 the fascist you planned and organized the first Unite the 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.399 Right rally in Charlottesville, got his starting political activism and 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:26.880 occupy in New York. You can find in Unicorn Rights 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.240 discord jets him talking about being very indue occupy at 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:34.159 the time. UM. Andrew Arenheimer, we've who's a neo Nazi 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.280 hacker and a prominent member of the fascist movement in 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:38.760 this country, claims to have been an organizer at Occupy 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.399 Wall Street. I found discussions in Unicorn Riots archive where 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.760 we've debates with other Nazis who were there about how 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.919 Occupied could have been handled differently and been more successful. 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.760 And for a lot of these Nazis, the failure of 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.159 the occupy movement to garner any real change and the 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.680 ease with which the police swept it aside were major 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.000 factors in radicalizing these guys to the far right. One 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.040 fascists that I found in a discord conversation said quote, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.159 I was at Occupy Wall Street in two thousand eleven. 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.240 It was black pilling as fuck, by which he means 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.240 the experience was so disheartening that it pushed him towards fascism. Um, 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.840 and that's really what we see with Mussolini um, he's 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.560 very involved in left wing politics. He gets arrested for them, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.360 and he sees them continue to fail. Right, they don't 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.040 succeed in overthrowing the government, they don't succeed in pushing 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.080 the changes that he believes are necessary, and it starts 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.040 to embitter him. I I often think that like some 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:36.159 of that happens in the black community with just also 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.240 like like still trying to wrap my brain around, Like 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.119 I saw a video of crips for Trump on the 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.480 on the UH at the at the at the at 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.120 the insurrection earlier. It's like Chris for Chump, west Side 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.639 something something, and and I could not wrap my brain around, 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.560 like how does will work? But I think it's it. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:57.240 I think a lot of it does have to do 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.480 with the fact that, like, you know, we've tried so hard, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.560 we put our flag in the sand with this particular 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:08.120 way of approaching you know, political change, and it's not working, 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.120 that you're like, well forget it, you know, and then like, 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.639 well maybe this will work. Maybe this going this direction 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.359 speaks more to like since the Empire the machine just 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.040 met us with might and just overpowered us with Mike 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:29.040 because they just they're just more powerful you'll only recourse 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:30.760 is to be like, well, I need to be more 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:36.040 powerful than that. I don't know. Yes, yes, that's exactly 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.560 when you when you're I think you're really onto something 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.520 like when you were when you're getting your ass kicked. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.919 And I think some of this is that I think 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.160 it's probably more common with males who are kind of activism, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.960 like and you get your pride is harm by getting 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.200 the ship kicked out of you repeatedly, by the repeated 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.280 failure to win, to advance, um, by the sheer strength 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.399 of your opponents. I do think that that can have 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.040 the effect of pushing people in that kind of more 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.600 violent authoritarian direction where you're like, well I just want 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.879 to win, Like yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.919 has if that's a part of what's going on. And 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.679 I think it is for Mussolini, because the switch for 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.880 him really happens as a result of World War One. UM. 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.199 So basically what you've got with World War one, Archduke 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.639 friends Ferdinand get shot dead along with his wife, and 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.879 it starts this this series of events right um, where 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.840 Austria is going to invade Serbia and Russia is going 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.119 to come in on the side of and like it 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.880 starts this whole domino effect, And so there's months between 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.880 his assassination and the actual outbreak of the war where 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.640 everyone knows that Europe is gearing up for a war. 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.760 And prior to that happening, the international left, the communist International, 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.080 largely had been very anti war, very united across national boundaries. 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.560 But as soon as a mass European war becomes a reality, 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:01.879 it starts to splinter. And there are a lot of 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.160 folks who had been socialist leftist, like workers who instead 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.560 of kind of siding with workers solidarity or like, well, 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.200 I'm gonna side with my country on this um. And 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.760 you know, that's not the only thing that's happening. There's 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.000 also like this, the Second International tries to organize like 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:19.879 some sort of workers strike or something like. There's a 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:21.920 couple of ideas about how they might stop the war 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.400 by organizing workers, and all of these ideas fail um 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.600 and you know, all of these ideas fail, and Europe 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.200 lurches towards war, and it's kind of like this moment 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:37.480 where this big international left wing movement shows it that 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.760 it's toothless in the eyes of at least of the 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:41.840 eyes of a guy like Mussolini, like, we said like this, 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:43.399 we weren't going to let this kind of thing happen, 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:47.440 and now it's happening. Um So that that for one 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.760 thing as a source of frustration to a lot of people. Um. 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.600 Mussolini is more directly enraged by something that happens earlier 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.639 in nineteen fourteen, um, something called Red Week, which was 0:21:57.680 --> 0:21:59.800 when a bunch of workers there was a big mass 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.679 becers revolt in Italy that was brutally put down by 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.600 Italian police and the Royal Army. Um. And this had 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.360 kind of convinced him that the bourgeoisie leaders of left 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:12.679 wing political parties, the actual like liberals and socialist in 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:16.840 government didn't really support revolution and he did. So all 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.200 of this stuff is kind of in the mix, leading 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.760 to him getting kind of black pilled, to use the 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.159 words of that other Nazi. Um. And Benito doesn't come 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:27.840 out as against the war as a result of this. Instead, 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.960 he decides to become incredibly pro war because he thinks 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:34.960 it's going to accelerate the collapse of the Italian state 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.639 and lead to a revolution. Right. Um So, in mid September, 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.320