Speaker 1: Ah, welcome back to it Could Happen Here? This is
Speaker 1: part two of it Could Happen Here, the podcast that Fox.
Speaker 1: All right, that's my job done today. Okay, Part two
Speaker 1: of James the Spanish Civil War and the the Antifa Olympics.
Speaker 1: That's right, yep, uh Civil War week. Closing out with
Speaker 1: this one. Why does the Olympics? Why did the Antifi
Speaker 1: Olympics hate freedom? Though? Is my question. The Antifa Olympics
Speaker 1: are going around and destroying all of the balls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are taking your children and bustloads of black clad
Speaker 1: athletes are showing up in your city, stimp place. This
Speaker 1: does make me think back briefly to win. A couple
Speaker 1: of different anti fascist groups in Seattle and Portland played
Speaker 1: soccer and it became a whole thing because yeah, they
Speaker 1: were Oh I used to play anarchist soccer in New
Speaker 1: York City and oh that got that got canceled hard. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's importantly they got canceled art it also because
Speaker 1: it was in New York City, there was a bunch
Speaker 1: of like semi famous actors who would come and play
Speaker 1: anarchist soccer but then couldn't be like visually associated, so
Speaker 1: like people would all mask up in solidarity. Whatever camera
Speaker 1: people would come by because like some famous actor was
Speaker 1: playing anarchist soccer in the park. That's very funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's danding. More of that needed. And yeah, these anarchists,
Speaker 1: of course would just busy doing the traditional anti fast
Speaker 1: Just think of starting forest fires in Oregon before okay,
Speaker 1: before the Civil war. So anyway, picking up from the
Speaker 1: last episode where we left our heroes, Yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the heroes, right. So with the minitary merging towards
Speaker 1: the city and every balcony in the working classroom bolt
Speaker 1: quickly becoming a sniper's nest. Every rifle was needed at
Speaker 1: the barricades with Spanish and cattle and tops took an impressed,
Speaker 1: idented break from being bastards and instead significant elements of
Speaker 1: the most squadro one of the Seville and the elite
Speaker 1: paramilitary assault guides grabbed their hand carbines, rifles with names
Speaker 1: like Tiger and Destroyer, and he took none of them
Speaker 1: are called Roberts, saddi um and took to the barricades
Speaker 1: and what missed opportunity. This is why the Spanish lost
Speaker 1: Get me my robber. I can see it now, I'm
Speaker 1: prepared to help you with the advertising. It no, just
Speaker 1: just gonna bother them right up. That's why they called
Speaker 1: them bobbies. Yeah, famously. I think we need to make
Speaker 1: I think it needs to be some sort of like
Speaker 1: nine barreled electronic volley gun. I want to Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: we could take out to something that could take out
Speaker 1: at least two Japanese prime ministers at once. You only
Speaker 1: need two barrels for one prime minister, so you could
Speaker 1: get up to four. Yeah, yeah, space some time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, today, go back and get Joan shiro Koaizumi,
Speaker 1: finally bring him to justice with a nine barrel gun. Mhm. Okay,
Speaker 1: So these people, so the cops and the anarchists are
Speaker 1: fighting alongside each other. Is that what you're just correct? Yep.
Speaker 1: The anarchists are pulling up paving stones, building barricades, which
Speaker 1: they had learned in previous conflict with the state could
Speaker 1: stop light artillery, and they are welcoming the cops. It's
Speaker 1: worth pointing out that the here is a Day are
Speaker 1: not cops, and the here is a Day are very
Speaker 1: rarely cops. Instead, it's the ordinary people of Catalonia, right,
Speaker 1: everyone from liberals to left libertarians runs to the barricades,
Speaker 1: but the anarchist affinity groups, the anarchist defense committees are
Speaker 1: the mortar that holds together the resistance right. They are experienced,
Speaker 1: they have plans, They provide imputers and inspiration to the
Speaker 1: working class. They are ready when their liberal government is not.
Speaker 1: Um they're a pretty good handle and fighting in the
Speaker 1: streets of Barcelona too. This is their home turf Right
Speaker 1: And incidentally, we see this ship a lot. Like people
Speaker 1: who are good at fighting the cops become integral and
Speaker 1: fighting the state happened in the my Dad happened in
Speaker 1: Too Rear Square, both with ultras right liquor football fans.
Speaker 1: People who go to football games through also like fighting
Speaker 1: cops UM. So like, it's not unprecedented that the folks
Speaker 1: who are good at fighting the cops become integral at
Speaker 1: fighting the state when state turns bad turns bad in
Speaker 1: many cases. They also have more experience when it plating
Speaker 1: their weapons than the poorly trained conscripts, because it would
Speaker 1: be pretty hard to have less. There's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a debate, a discussion about causality here. Does the
Speaker 1: coup fail where it does because the cops remain loyal
Speaker 1: or does the beach head established by the working class
Speaker 1: at Lava cops who were sympathetic but not convinced to
Speaker 1: safely remain loyal. Right, So across Spain, it's like not
Speaker 1: quite the same as the US to the cops are
Speaker 1: better trained and better armed than the military, but they
Speaker 1: often hung back until the working class to take a
Speaker 1: decisive action. Right um, the was where the winds blowing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly like they sometimes like occasionally they will do some
Speaker 1: sort of kingship like in the one city they a
Speaker 1: couple of the assault guards are their officers side with
Speaker 1: a coup, so they get shot by their own men.
Speaker 1: Love to see. In other places they signed to do nothing.
Speaker 1: In some places the soldiers come for them where I
Speaker 1: like it, it's on now. But in other places they
Speaker 1: join with the working classes. They do. In Barcelona, the
Speaker 1: civil guard is older. The civil guard tends to be
Speaker 1: in more rural places where the coup tends to be
Speaker 1: more successful, and civil guide tends to be less lowered
Speaker 1: to the republic. The civil Guide in Barcelona waits until noon.
Speaker 1: The coup is really defeated by noon. By noon, the
Speaker 1: soldiers all hold up in the food buildings, and it's
Speaker 1: very clear that they haven't won. And then they come
Speaker 1: in on a horseback clip clopping down the street doing
Speaker 1: the raised fist salute, like just milking it to announce
Speaker 1: their sort of loyalty to republic. They did have better
Speaker 1: guns and better marksman, so they were helpful in assaulting
Speaker 1: their buildings. That came next. Alright, alright, every one, we're here.
Speaker 1: We saved the day. Yeah, here we go, thin blue line.
Speaker 1: So what happens all across Barcelona is the tremendously poorly
Speaker 1: organized army meet well organized when in trench resistance, and
Speaker 1: they're killed a turn back. So I want to give
Speaker 1: one example of this from Avonida Carrier. It's related by
Speaker 1: Beaver in his book. Now, what they've done in the
Speaker 1: carrier was taken out huge rolls of newsprint, like the
Speaker 1: stuff that you put newspaper on, and rolled them into
Speaker 1: the streets to make a barricade. Right. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: a degree to which people were like ready in amusing
Speaker 1: ways is it's a great part of this, you know,
Speaker 1: that was what they had available to them. Seems to
Speaker 1: be stopping bullets. So is the way to stop bullets?
Speaker 1: It is? Yeah, lots of layers of newsprint um different places.
Speaker 1: So yes, it was yeah, yeah, it certainly seemed to
Speaker 1: work here. And they had their big old guns like
Speaker 1: Spanish mouths. Telefighting stops for a second, and a small
Speaker 1: group of workers and an assault guard closed the distance
Speaker 1: between themselves and to seventy five millimeter field guns. But
Speaker 1: they're holding their rifles above their heads. They said that
Speaker 1: they wanted to talk and not to fight for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, to give a passionate speech informing the soldiers
Speaker 1: they've been lied to that the anarchists were not in revolt,
Speaker 1: that they were in fact part of a coup, and
Speaker 1: that they should not fire on their predatorian brothers. It's
Speaker 1: not exactly clear what they said, but whatever they said,
Speaker 1: it worked, and very slowly the seed of class consciousness
Speaker 1: was planted and it bloomed in about the time it
Speaker 1: takes to turn a seventy five millimeter gun a hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty degrees loaded and fired at your offices. Which, again,
Speaker 1: it's just so good like that that these powerful anecdotes
Speaker 1: of like someone just being like, ha, yeah, now that
Speaker 1: you phrase it like that, we're on the same team.
Speaker 1: Let me turn this around. Yeah. I also just love
Speaker 1: to think of the guy who has just been like
Speaker 1: previously like for God and country gets vaporized by seventy
Speaker 1: five millimet Again, it's truly magnificent death. So the popular
Speaker 1: Olympians are still in town, right. Uh, they turned up
Speaker 1: to show off as anti fascist, but they didn't really
Speaker 1: expect to be showing off their anti fascist BUTTA fighters
Speaker 1: quite like this, But lots of them were winning participants.
Speaker 1: The Americans were down by the bucket your market, you've
Speaker 1: probably been there, you've been to Barcelona. He probably bought
Speaker 1: an edible arrangement um what tourists like to do um.
Speaker 1: And they watched the streets around them turn into battlegrounds.
Speaker 1: You can see the bullet holes in the hotel where
Speaker 1: they stayed in, some of the cafes around there, and
Speaker 1: that some of these bullet holes that should be mentioned
Speaker 1: from a sadah and altogether different battle. A year later
Speaker 1: and they're there. They popped down of their hotel rooms
Speaker 1: to take a look at what was going on, got
Speaker 1: shot at, and then went back inside and then out
Speaker 1: of different balconies. But they had this sig of popping
Speaker 1: out of different balconies, like I don't understand what the
Speaker 1: fund is going on in their heads, whether like people
Speaker 1: keep shooting at us, let's continue to try different balconies.
Speaker 1: I can see doing that, just being serious, right, like
Speaker 1: yeah yeah yeah, they and they'd all made friends with
Speaker 1: Spanish people, right, they were just they were not the
Speaker 1: athletes of today that they were out late drinking every night,
Speaker 1: and they were really bummed, very quickly, very upset that
Speaker 1: we need to get stuck in, like you know, we're young,
Speaker 1: healthy people and their diaries. They also right about seeing
Speaker 1: the Spanish women at the barricade and just being like,
Speaker 1: oh fuck, yes, this is outstanding. Yeah yeah, they're They're
Speaker 1: just like because they're very committed, right, like these these
Speaker 1: anti fatties are very committed to gender equality, like they
Speaker 1: really are. And it's it's demonsitable in all the communications
Speaker 1: about the popular Olympics, when they send stuff to unions
Speaker 1: and unions like here's a team, it's tend dude say like,
Speaker 1: well that's fucking disappointing, Like where are the women? What
Speaker 1: are we doing here? Hey? How are we making the
Speaker 1: world better with just a bunch of dudes exercising together? Like? Um,
Speaker 1: so that it really is. I think it's very genuine
Speaker 1: commitment for them, and they're yeah, they're they're so pumped.
Speaker 1: So when the fighting lolls, these guys come running out,
Speaker 1: and they saw those cavalry horses, Right, the cavalry horses
Speaker 1: that they'd expected to parade down the Rambler in the
Speaker 1: victorious coup had now been stacked on top of each
Speaker 1: other as barricades, and so the horses. Yes, they used
Speaker 1: the horses as cover. You can find pictures of this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of The horses didn't want to be fascists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think you can take some solace in knowing
Speaker 1: that the people who are riding them also got killed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you say the horses didn't want to be fascist. This
Speaker 1: is in the intersection of ship you enjoy robot actually yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: shipping on horses and hating fash ye, which are the
Speaker 1: same horses, would be very good at shipping on fascists
Speaker 1: from a great light. Yeah, yeah, I know, r I P.
Speaker 1: Horses did nothing wrong. Paul went out for the horses.
Speaker 1: So Charlie Burley runs down into the street, right, He's
Speaker 1: pretty accustomed to fighting. He's a boxer. He's a mixed
Speaker 1: race kid who grew up in Pittsburgh, He's refused to
Speaker 1: go to the Olympics because he doesn't want any of
Speaker 1: Hitler's bullshit and he doesn't speak Spanish, so all he needs,
Speaker 1: oh he knows how to do. It's pick up a crowbar,
Speaker 1: start leavering up, paving stones and helping to build a barricade.
Speaker 1: That's universal language. Yeah, breaking ship, and so he just
Speaker 1: gets stuck in and now I'm rhythm do right. These
Speaker 1: barricades he built, like I said, they were so strong
Speaker 1: that they would stop like artillery across the city with
Speaker 1: and snaps of bullets cracked across the wide boulevards that
Speaker 1: cut through the regimented grid of the Exemplar snipers were
Speaker 1: stationed in the bell towers of churches. They picked off
Speaker 1: the newly formed People's militiaies a dash between the barricades
Speaker 1: carrying ammunition of food. A French athlete, the right wing snipers.
Speaker 1: That's correct. Yeah, yeah, so that you will definitely read it.
Speaker 1: They were priests, but they're not. I don't think, just
Speaker 1: a weird you know, if you're gonna put a sniper,
Speaker 1: then you want to put something up there who knows
Speaker 1: how toes a rifle. But yeah, that makes yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So they probably weren't pretty that. That That doesn't mean the priests,
Speaker 1: we're not betting them surely were. It's some points um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is why the churches get burned. It's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons. A group of German exiles suspected
Speaker 1: their companies diplomats might be involved, so they raided their
Speaker 1: homes and found massive statues of weapons, which is great.
Speaker 1: The Republic had very liberal asylum policies, so you have
Speaker 1: a town of German Italian anti fascists already in town
Speaker 1: elsewhere people found each other in the streets were joined
Speaker 1: up with pre existing affinity groups to form Centuria. Centuria
Speaker 1: is a Latin word for units for a hundred soldiers.
Speaker 1: They're broadly based on a language, and they're named after
Speaker 1: some famous leftist like Tom Mann, Karl Marx Ornst Salomon Rent,
Speaker 1: their founder of Antifa with a capital H. Later these
Speaker 1: would become the nucleus of the International Brigades. But the
Speaker 1: International Brigades were the army of the commintern and the
Speaker 1: Centuria weren't basically like under Soviet control. Yes, that's right there,
Speaker 1: Soviet controlled communist internationals, so they would not trynal Lee
Speaker 1: stylist more or less right, and certainly like you can
Speaker 1: read our ship hand about the International Brigades going from
Speaker 1: a broad popular front leftist alliance to straight up stylists
Speaker 1: and what that does to their their desire to fight
Speaker 1: and their ability to fight. And I would suggest that
Speaker 1: it's not great. That's story as all this time. Yes
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, draw your own conclusions. Cecil lb is
Speaker 1: very good on that, if you want to read his book. So,
Speaker 1: these Centuria don't have officers, and they certainly don't have
Speaker 1: commissars right and off their roll too fight the Nazis.
Speaker 1: By eleven am, General Goddard has landed from New Yorker.
Speaker 1: He was hoping to command the city which he The
Speaker 1: Nationalists thought that the Bathburner would be the easiest city
Speaker 1: for them, right, they thought it was a soft target,
Speaker 1: and they were wrong. I don't know what again, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not smart. It was only through the intervention of Kalida,
Speaker 1: her son incidentally killed Trotsky, that his life was spared.
Speaker 1: He hold up in the headquarters. Headquarters was over run.
Speaker 1: They wanted to execute him immediately. She intervened. She says, no,
Speaker 1: you know, we've gotta we gotta do this pretended justice.
Speaker 1: So we put him on the prison ship of Uruguay
Speaker 1: and then he's killed a little later after a court martial.
Speaker 1: He's executed a few weeks later in the mounch Wee Castle.
Speaker 1: That in the mounche Wee Castle, the troops had shot
Speaker 1: their officers and the n c o s had leaded
Speaker 1: a raid on the armory where they began distributing guns
Speaker 1: to anarchists. Again, Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I love to
Speaker 1: see it. The Cattla left and the Catholic Church had
Speaker 1: some historical disagreements. Right, the Church had a long history
Speaker 1: of violence towards the left, and the left had equally
Speaker 1: long history of violence towards the church. The church had
Speaker 1: been part of brutal oppression of the working class, right
Speaker 1: victimization of people, especially of working class women, and as
Speaker 1: troops withdrew from the city in July, anarchists began to
Speaker 1: take revenge against the churches. Nune's corpses were disinterred, priests
Speaker 1: accused of collaboration were executed. By the afternoon, the sky
Speaker 1: began to fill with smoke. Churches burned all over the city.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they had these things called checkers, which were like
Speaker 1: revenutionary tribunals. Where they put the priests or the murches themselves.
Speaker 1: Later outside Madrid, there's a famous photo of them like
Speaker 1: executing a giant statue of Jesus try st after putting
Speaker 1: it on trial. That's Watch in the Future for Robert
Speaker 1: Evans is that is a pretty funny bit. It's good.
Speaker 1: There's a firing squad and everything. That is like a
Speaker 1: pretty good dedication to the bit. You've got it. Whether
Speaker 1: or not you agree with it, you have to respect it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good T shirt. Maybe we could return to
Speaker 1: merch and have that that image. But yeah, some Catholics
Speaker 1: rebuilt it. Daddy, it's it's no longer riddled with bullet
Speaker 1: holes in its face. Well, it's time to do well,
Speaker 1: yeah you know what that means. Yes, it's time to
Speaker 1: kill God and storm heaven. Yeah, and redistribute all them
Speaker 1: stuff harps for everyone. Yeah. People wore robes. Actually, this
Speaker 1: became a bit of an issue because people will be like, lo,
Speaker 1: look at me, I'm wearing a robe. I pretend to
Speaker 1: be a priest, and then other people will be like,
Speaker 1: fuck you priest and shoot them. Yeah, I don't do that. Actually,
Speaker 1: robes for everyone. Bad idea at a time of anti
Speaker 1: clerical violence. What you can do is drink all the
Speaker 1: communion wine, which is what they did. It's sorry, all
Speaker 1: the blood of Christ is what they do. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Actually, I guess it only becomes that in
Speaker 1: the stomach. Yeah. No, I'm a bad Catholic. I don't
Speaker 1: remember any of this. Or it's just wine until they
Speaker 1: until they do the thing and say the words, and
Speaker 1: then there's something special happens. That's that's that's the the Eucharist.
Speaker 1: So was the pre blood. Yeah, it's it's pretty blad.
Speaker 1: It's just sweet wine. By the twenties of July, the
Speaker 1: military was all but done for in a city, right,
Speaker 1: but some of them had retreated back to their barracks
Speaker 1: immediately they came out promptly, got shot up by a
Speaker 1: ship ton of people and went nope, and Paul the
Speaker 1: one returned to the barracks. So smarter than the tourists
Speaker 1: at the hotel. Yes, although I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: because these guys end up dying there and the tourists
Speaker 1: do not the side one. But yes, yeah, idea true. Well,
Speaker 1: I would be lying if I said the tourists do not,
Speaker 1: because one of those tourists does a guy called Albert
Speaker 1: I'll chacken. They called him chick. He was a coach
Speaker 1: of the team, community college professor actually, and he leaves,
Speaker 1: goes back to America and just can't deal with like missing.
Speaker 1: It's not so much at the guilt of not being there,
Speaker 1: it's and I think some of us maybe can relate
Speaker 1: to this in a way, right, like the missing of
Speaker 1: being there too, like that, Yeah, and how special it
Speaker 1: feels roberts off. Robert can can relate to this, right,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes it's some time you feel the most alive
Speaker 1: is when you're trying not to be dead. But also
Speaker 1: like this was a fucking awesome time, right, Like the
Speaker 1: cops have joined the working class, the churches are on fire,
Speaker 1: the bosses are running for the hills, and the army
Speaker 1: has just had its ass handed to it by like
Speaker 1: a bunch of men and women in blue overrules. Like
Speaker 1: I can imagine it felt pretty cool. Um. So he
Speaker 1: goes home and then he decided to come back. He
Speaker 1: comes back with his wife. His wife wins the first
Speaker 1: art therapy program for children traumatized by conflict. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: the the pictures are ECSD. I used to go sit
Speaker 1: with them all the time just kind of I don't
Speaker 1: feels like a special place, like a nice connection. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that gets like left out of
Speaker 1: history too much, too right, as these contributions like and
Speaker 1: these like developments that come from political articles that are
Speaker 1: like not just the gun, the Robert you know or
Speaker 1: the you know, season of workplace US, but the developing
Speaker 1: of art therapy for people dealing with traumatic event that rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely right, Like these people made homeward bombs, but they
Speaker 1: also made it easier for kids to process their trauma.
Speaker 1: Like that's what anarchism is, folks. Um. But yeah, Jenny Burman,
Speaker 1: they hyphenated their last names Berman Chaking uh yeah, advanced, Yeah,
Speaker 1: highly progressive. Yeah, his wife Jenny was definitely the radical
Speaker 1: and she she sort of brought him on and he
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, fucking you got it. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes back. You can see the pictures at UCSD,
Speaker 1: they're online too. But Al dies in a sort of
Speaker 1: chaotic retreat to the International Brigades. No one knows where. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to write a book about him, have some
Speaker 1: of his diaries. Just an inspirational guy in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, very nice guy. He's also like he sort
Speaker 1: of draws a lot of disdain from the other passengers
Speaker 1: on the boat when they crossed seeing the first time,
Speaker 1: because the passages keep getting mad that the black folks
Speaker 1: and the white folks are eating at the same table
Speaker 1: at dinner from the popular Olympics team, and he's just
Speaker 1: like super mad at this and like why would you
Speaker 1: be that way? So it just keeps like getting and
Speaker 1: he is a wrestler, right, He's a collegiate wrestler. He
Speaker 1: at Olympic trials, just keeps getting in people's faces about it.
Speaker 1: I guess, which like, yeah, is I guess being an
Speaker 1: ally or something, but just yes, Jenny Berman is in
Speaker 1: there's a film called The Good Fight, which is about
Speaker 1: the American volunteers, and you can see her talking about him.
Speaker 1: Cool and yeah, I think it's it's obviously pretty difficult
Speaker 1: experience for her talking about him, but I'm sure the
Speaker 1: whole thing it's pretty rough, given you know, the things
Speaker 1: that happened afterwards. But yeah, again, I'm a wonderful person.
Speaker 1: She's passed away now. But yeah, actually it's it's the interview,
Speaker 1: it's the full interview with her that I'm waiting for us.
Speaker 1: I can write about him, and yes she does. Look
Speaker 1: at the good Fight. It's a good film. So on
Speaker 1: the July, the anarchists are assembling outside these barracks. Right,
Speaker 1: they had to support the police, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: it anymore, and so they assembled their own troops instead, right,
Speaker 1: the Olivia Abati, Santi Lascasso and Adesome Chad shit, and
Speaker 1: they do what the anarchists did at this time, which
Speaker 1: is they lead a frontal charge on the barracks where
Speaker 1: there are still machine guns. And so they are brave,
Speaker 1: but perhaps not tactically astute. I've read about this where
Speaker 1: basically one of the problems that people had, like strategically
Speaker 1: about the anarchists is that the anarchists in Spain were
Speaker 1: so uh fervent in their beliefs that they basically were like,
Speaker 1: hooray soon I will be a murder and like all
Speaker 1: charged the machine guns and like weren't always the most
Speaker 1: strategic is that map to your understanding or in the
Speaker 1: early days of the civil war, they're like because they
Speaker 1: have been raised for decades of propaganda of the deed,
Speaker 1: right uh, and like propaganda of the deed is is
Speaker 1: saying like you know, like you can die as a
Speaker 1: hero and become an example to the working class and
Speaker 1: you will elevate the cause. And it's as close to
Speaker 1: martyrdom as you can get in an atheist political belief,
Speaker 1: I think. And yes, so they were just like like Ascarsa.
Speaker 1: Ascaso is a famous anarchist leader. Ascaso is a guy
Speaker 1: who dies like literally leading the charge frontly on a
Speaker 1: machine gun at this time, at this barracks. Right, he
Speaker 1: dies in less than twenty four hours after the war started.
Speaker 1: And he's a member of this Nostos group with the
Speaker 1: Routine and others and Garthie Oliver, and he's the one
Speaker 1: who gives his name to the pistol. Right. So in Tlassa,
Speaker 1: the CMT, the the anarchists, anarchis Central Gist take over
Speaker 1: an arms factory, taken over, the workers run the factory,
Speaker 1: and they start making these pistols with his name. It's
Speaker 1: like the only gun that is not in some way
Speaker 1: morally compromised. So I guess in that sense he goes
Speaker 1: on to kill a lot of fascists. And but yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't want the help of the police, they don't
Speaker 1: want the tactical advice. The Routie actually later is very
Speaker 1: good at this. He has regular army officers embedded with
Speaker 1: his column and he listens to them, and that allows
Speaker 1: him to be more successful than the other anarchists. But yeah,
Speaker 1: here the battle cries atlante, which is like, you know, forward,
Speaker 1: men of the c NT. They had women to but
Speaker 1: I guess that's not what they were going for. And
Speaker 1: they took the barracks along with thirty thousand rifles. Pretty
Speaker 1: much all of those would be in the hands of
Speaker 1: working people within a couple of days. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: vast like this is a decent slice of the Republic's
Speaker 1: weapons until they get resupplied later. And interestingly, like the
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and Mexico supply them, but they the
Speaker 1: Republican government in Madrid doesn't want people supplying the anarchists,
Speaker 1: so only um c Z or the check Gun Company
Speaker 1: are willing to elicitly violate two different arms embargoes to
Speaker 1: supply the anarchists later in the worst yeah based c Z, Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe we can have them be the advert for this episode. Finally,
Speaker 1: a solid case for the hammer fired arm in modern days,
Speaker 1: you have to honor the legacy of c Z. Yeah. Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: the only the only morally correct firearm to buy. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done that? Motherfucker's Nope, No, I don't see any
Speaker 1: glocks in an anarchist hands. Uh yeah, by a thirty
Speaker 1: two a c P. Because it also killed Hitler. It's
Speaker 1: the most anti fascist you can you can. Hitler killed Hitler.
Speaker 1: But you know we don't have to go there fascist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: critical support or you could say, yeah, well you know
Speaker 1: who else tried to kill Hitler? Hitler? He did once
Speaker 1: before in nine after the failed Munich punch. But his
Speaker 1: friend puts the han Stengel's wife, who he had a
Speaker 1: crush on, from killing himself, which was a mistake. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she let the team down. So see that's where Cez
Speaker 1: came in, giving him an efficient way to kill himself
Speaker 1: with no wives around. Did have a wive around, didn't he? See? Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Sez. Hitler's dead. Uh. And with that, let's
Speaker 1: go back to Spain Catalonia. I guess um. So the
Speaker 1: French Popular Olympics team left that day. They sang the
Speaker 1: International Aisle from the deck of their boat as they
Speaker 1: pulled out the port. A few days later, on the
Speaker 1: Rambler Parade was organized. The various nations of the Popular
Speaker 1: Olympics march down the street led inexplicably buy some bagpipers
Speaker 1: who had arrived with the British team. Hell yeah, that's
Speaker 1: another international bag page. Yeah yeah, yeah, why why not?
Speaker 1: I love that? Like yeah, some anti fascist bagpipers had
Speaker 1: been recruited by this point, and they all sign the
Speaker 1: international in their own languages, did the race fist salute
Speaker 1: that would become the popular friend salute. And they heard
Speaker 1: a speech, and in the speech they were told, you've
Speaker 1: come for the Games, but you have remained for the
Speaker 1: greater front in battling, in triumph. Now your task is clear.
Speaker 1: You'll go back to your countries and spread the word,
Speaker 1: the news of what you've seen in Spain. So some
Speaker 1: of them went back, and some of them stayed. All
Speaker 1: in all, about two hundred of them actually uh stayed
Speaker 1: to fight or came back to fight. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: their names Bill Scott. He was an irishman who came
Speaker 1: for the Games. He he went back and forth between
Speaker 1: Spain and Island. Bunch wrote in some wrote some letters
Speaker 1: to newspapers to encourage other people to join. His big
Speaker 1: slogan was a victory for fascism in Spain is a
Speaker 1: victory for fascism in Ireland and the that's the same
Speaker 1: slogan that the other side used to write. Yes, but
Speaker 1: the Irish volunteers who fought for the fascists were fucking
Speaker 1: exceptionally useless. Yeah yeah, and may have excelled more than
Speaker 1: Iris voluteers who fought for the anti fascist a killing fascist,
Speaker 1: which I guess critical support to them. Um. He fights
Speaker 1: in the Battle of Madrid, Bill Scott we gets shot
Speaker 1: in the neck or will style, So they go Robert.
Speaker 1: Maybe they really were sticking their next out mm hm,
Speaker 1: and you've got Otto Bosch. Otto Bosch was a lover
Speaker 1: of novelists and poet Muriel Rook isiser. He was a
Speaker 1: cabinet maker, sprinter and literally an actual card carrying Antifa
Speaker 1: member and now he was a soldier. Um he also died.
Speaker 1: The sad part about this part of the war is
Speaker 1: everyone dies pretty quickly afterwards. Yeah, yeah, it's really sad.
Speaker 1: These people are, you know, as good as people came
Speaker 1: and they all end up dead. But let's not talk
Speaker 1: about I want to focus on the victorious part, so
Speaker 1: that evening right do Rucci got the olive and about
Speaker 1: this Anthion go and meet with compounds Ascaso is dead right,
Speaker 1: because he was on his heroics. They're still in their monos,
Speaker 1: they're still covered in blood, and they're still carrying their
Speaker 1: weapons with bitches away. One should meet with a politician,
Speaker 1: so he gives them this little speech. And I, like
Speaker 1: some people say this's apocryphal, I don't really give a funk.
Speaker 1: I think it's nice. I'm going to read it. It's
Speaker 1: not very long. Um. Firstly, I must say that the
Speaker 1: C and T and the FI have never been treated
Speaker 1: as a true importance merited. You have always been halfly persecuted,
Speaker 1: and I, with much regret, was forced by political necessity
Speaker 1: to oppose you, even though always once with you. Today
Speaker 1: you are the masters of the city and of Catalonia,
Speaker 1: because you alone have conquered the Fastist military. And I
Speaker 1: hope that you will not forget that you did not
Speaker 1: lack the help of the loyal members of my party,
Speaker 1: but you have one and orders in your power. If
Speaker 1: you do not need me as president of Catalonia, tell
Speaker 1: me now, and I will become just another soldier in
Speaker 1: the fight against fascism. If, on the other hand, and
Speaker 1: you believe that I, my party, my name, my prestige,
Speaker 1: could be of use. Then you can depend on me
Speaker 1: and my loyalty as a man who is convinced that
Speaker 1: the whole past of shame is dead. So that's nice,
Speaker 1: that's that's cool. I mean, it's yeah interesting, you know, right,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. I think it's the clearest we get to
Speaker 1: a person at a time, being Like in the last
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, I have gone from president to a
Speaker 1: guy who has to ask the anarchist for a rifle
Speaker 1: so I can fight. Yeah, and like it's a you know,
Speaker 1: people get on that, the Lensky stuff, but this is
Speaker 1: kind of different, I guess, you know, Like it's good
Speaker 1: to find someone who cares about a cause more than power. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As a rule, if it's your job to be in
Speaker 1: charge of people, I'm probably not a fan of their
Speaker 1: job existing. But if when it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: you you you throw down rather than the hide in
Speaker 1: a bunker or flee the country to live in exile
Speaker 1: in I don't know, whatever friendly country, then that's better
Speaker 1: than the alternative. Yeah, yeah, i'd agree, And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: being more attached to this and to yourself preservation or
Speaker 1: your power, I think is admirable. For example, if Joe
Speaker 1: Biden had burned down the third Precinct himself. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people would feel more positively towards him.
Speaker 1: He did, though you didn't. We're not supposed to talk
Speaker 1: about this on the podcast. Guys, all right, you're right,
Speaker 1: this is this is yeah again wraps until the mid
Speaker 1: terms really start to heat up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's
Speaker 1: a surprised video of Joe Biden with a firebomb. I
Speaker 1: was told that he had a kind of ax body
Speaker 1: sprain of lighter mm hmmmm yeah, that's how he normally
Speaker 1: roles when he's in Block and all right, sorry, that
Speaker 1: image is like so cursed that I'm like Joe Biden
Speaker 1: and Block doing the smile like he's in the Camaro,
Speaker 1: but we're just holding the ax body sand. But everyone
Speaker 1: can figure out it's him because he keeps touching people
Speaker 1: and everyone's keeping He's sniffing everybody's hair, asking if he
Speaker 1: can smell the inside of their bala clavas. Uncle Joe,
Speaker 1: a hero, true anti fascist. Yeah, are you are you
Speaker 1: going dark Brandon on us? Oh? God, we are. We
Speaker 1: gonna have to explain what dark bread it is on
Speaker 1: the pond. I don't think we need to. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's ever going to be irrelevant. I think we
Speaker 1: would just say, let's go get up. Kids. Just type
Speaker 1: Dark Brandon into your Twitter search and see what happened
Speaker 1: and educate yourself this right now. But please get yeah,
Speaker 1: please do because I don't have a clue. No, I
Speaker 1: have no idea what they're talking about. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: on the Internet enough, and I don't think I haven't
Speaker 1: one to be um, So things go differently on across
Speaker 1: the country, right, um the Navy. I'm waiting to hear
Speaker 1: Margaret squeal or scream or cry. I just don't understand. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think it's that he's a vampire. Yes, go fucking
Speaker 1: go ahead, tell us about dog brand. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just weird. I don't want to know. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't need to know. It's fine, it's it's a good time.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a good time on the internet. That's all.
Speaker 1: The Dark Brandon is all right. The Navy doesn't fall
Speaker 1: for the coup, right, and this leads to this spectacular
Speaker 1: exchange between the crew of the James, the first Battleship
Speaker 1: right of the Ministry of Marine crew to Ministry of Marine.
Speaker 1: We've encountered serious resistance in the minds and officers on
Speaker 1: board crew to Ministry of Marine, we have subdued them
Speaker 1: by force. Urgently request instructions as to bodies. Ministry to
Speaker 1: Marine to crew, lower the bodies overboard with respectable solemnity.
Speaker 1: What is your present position? So what they've done there
Speaker 1: is the officers have declared for the crew for the coup,
Speaker 1: and the minute the sailors on board the ship have
Speaker 1: killed them and throwing them over the edge. Subdued by force?
Speaker 1: What do we do with the people we have subdued?
Speaker 1: Just the most amazing radio message like the officers turned
Speaker 1: out to be Rudd's and then like brief pause, what
Speaker 1: do you want us to do with their bodies? Again? King? Shit?
Speaker 1: So it's a few days before the battle lines really
Speaker 1: get drawn as to who is where, who's on what
Speaker 1: side of the Spanish Civil War. It's a few days
Speaker 1: before it becomes clearly this is a civil war because
Speaker 1: without boats, the rebels seemed to be in trouble, but
Speaker 1: the fascists came to their abe with planes to where
Speaker 1: lift the troops from Africa. The Republic had more troops
Speaker 1: and more access to supplies, and it looked like they
Speaker 1: were going to win a war of attrition. That doesn't
Speaker 1: work out because France, the UK, and the United States
Speaker 1: abandoned Spain and a fascist do not abandon Franca. I
Speaker 1: don't really want to finish there. I want to backtrack
Speaker 1: and think about how many times in the past or
Speaker 1: the present the working class of a city is spontaneously
Speaker 1: organized to prevent an army from entering that city, especially
Speaker 1: in the age of the tank and the bomber. I
Speaker 1: can't already think of any and I know if you
Speaker 1: guys can, but I can come up with one. I
Speaker 1: got nothing, yeah, anyone, I mean other than Kiev kind
Speaker 1: of yeah, some of it was at least spontaneous, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't against their own army like they had
Speaker 1: an army, no, that is yeah, I mean you could
Speaker 1: there are pieces of that, and it was it was
Speaker 1: not as organized or clearly as successful in you know,
Speaker 1: the Holy Week uprisings and the Watts riots and stuff. Yeah, yeah, true, yeah,
Speaker 1: pieces of it. Yeah, I mean, even like in Minneapolis, right,
Speaker 1: like where the state didn't exist for a while. But uh, this,
Speaker 1: this revolution is somewhat unique at least in that right,
Speaker 1: And what happens afterwards, and what happened in the Civil
Speaker 1: War isn't what I want to end on. You can
Speaker 1: see this kind of idea in ken Loach's film Land
Speaker 1: and Freedom, that this was a romantic failure, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true. I think that the the only
Speaker 1: way for the Civil Water succeed was doing what it did.
Speaker 1: For the Republic to succeed was doing what it did well,
Speaker 1: and what it did well with harnessing the enthusiasm and
Speaker 1: passion of the working class people to build a better
Speaker 1: word for themselves. When it became not worth fighting and
Speaker 1: dying for something, then the war was already lost for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Trying to mass behind a conventional
Speaker 1: war effort doesn't make sense when your enemy has every
Speaker 1: advantage in a conventional war effort. But I don't want
Speaker 1: to focus on that. I want to focus on the
Speaker 1: last week, when the city is in the hands of
Speaker 1: the people, when there are no cops and no bosses.
Speaker 1: People go back to work as collectives when there's no money,
Speaker 1: but people distribute food to people who need it all
Speaker 1: across Spain, and not just at the bar of a gun.
Speaker 1: People collectivised. They collectivising Castile and the socialized industry in Valencia.
Speaker 1: And it's a remarkable moment in human history, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't last more than a year, but I think it
Speaker 1: shows us that this, this other future was possible. Right.
Speaker 1: The path we took from to the present day was
Speaker 1: not the best one, but I like to think that
Speaker 1: just for just for a little while, it could have
Speaker 1: done better. And and I think that's where I want
Speaker 1: to end, really, is thinking about how we could do better.
Speaker 1: And if people want to read books this this has
Speaker 1: already been a long episode. I will say Helen Graham's
Speaker 1: very short introduction is very good. Um, Anthony Beavo's newer
Speaker 1: book is good, and you can get an audiobook Julian
Speaker 1: Casta Nova. It's one of my favorite writers in Spanish
Speaker 1: and some of his stuff is translated into English. Augustine
Speaker 1: Giarmad's book Ready for the Revolution on the affinity groups
Speaker 1: of the CNT and and Chris ellen stuff on Barcelona
Speaker 1: is excellent, and if you're in Barcelona, Nick Lloyd's Walking
Speaker 1: Towards are excellent. Yeah, that's hope. That's enough there. You
Speaker 1: can watch Ken Loaches film. You can watch I think
Speaker 1: it's called Parallel Mothers that's on Netflix, a couple of
Speaker 1: good films. Yeah, thank you so much, Margaret again for
Speaker 1: joining me too, and hear me drown on about the
Speaker 1: Spanish Civil War for an hour and I'm into it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, well, I've only been learning the details
Speaker 1: more recently, you know, I've always just heard about it
Speaker 1: in in broad strokes and the like. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people like talking about what it means, right,
Speaker 1: but till about what it means isol But the stuff
Speaker 1: that's like really interesting to me is the stuff that
Speaker 1: actually like makes it matter is the the person who
Speaker 1: shows up and you know, develops ways to deal with
Speaker 1: trauma by art therapy. And the people who bravely steal
Speaker 1: dynamite and become named named Rose of the Dynamiter. What
Speaker 1: was what was her name? Yeah, she loses a hand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's better than Rose of the Riveter. I mean, no
Speaker 1: offense to Rosa the Riveter, But Rose of the Dynamiter
Speaker 1: is is is doing well? Um? What was it called? Dynamiter?
Speaker 1: Go after all of the libraries keeping the books in
Speaker 1: prison free knowledge keepers of thought. I really like variants
Speaker 1: taken away get canceled, but I like libraries and librarians
Speaker 1: you all aren't ready for this discourse, Margaret, but kill
Speaker 1: Joy take your librari coroblematic. That's how we know your
Speaker 1: a CIA asset because of your pro library style. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: classic capitalist infrastructure. What where did the CIA train all
Speaker 1: those people to overthrow governments? The School of the America's
Speaker 1: what does every school have? Library? Library is the problem
Speaker 1: because that's the School of America's. There's there's two things
Speaker 1: wrong with School of America's school and America. Most the
Speaker 1: problem is the school part. I think the real problems
Speaker 1: School of the Americas that had School of the Dame,
Speaker 1: and we can't have that. That is, that's an oppressive,
Speaker 1: hierarchical system of learning. Unbelievable. If America Vespucci never came here,
Speaker 1: maybe things would be different, maybe even better. Wow, anti
Speaker 1: Italian slander, I'm here for it. Well let's all end
Speaker 1: on that note. Fuck Italy yea and funk traffic lights, Margaret,
Speaker 1: Do you have anything to plug? I do. People can
Speaker 1: get my they can pre order my book that is
Speaker 1: all about why traffic lights are bad. Um. It's called
Speaker 1: we Won't be here Tomorrow, and it's written from the
Speaker 1: point of view of a traffic light that no, it's
Speaker 1: knows it's about to be abolished. It's out from a
Speaker 1: K press. Um who uses the red and black flag
Speaker 1: is the logo, and much like the anarchist in the
Speaker 1: Spanish Civil War who developed the red and black flag,
Speaker 1: which is to reference, of course, the negation of the red,
Speaker 1: because the red in the traffic light is what stops you, um,
Speaker 1: and so the black is the negation the red in
Speaker 1: this in this case, and that's what happens when you
Speaker 1: disconnect a traffic light from power. It goes black. No,
Speaker 1: it's disconnecting ship. But people are shooting the traffic light.
Speaker 1: And you know what a k do you know what
Speaker 1: a K press? Do you know? Do you know what
Speaker 1: a K press sells? Well? Books and and books? Where
Speaker 1: do where do books get kept? That's right, that's it's all.
Speaker 1: It's your everyone is in on it. Okay, Well, if
Speaker 1: you don't want to be part of the evil world,
Speaker 1: you can do what is clearly good, which is listened
Speaker 1: to podcasts and create para social relationships the public medium
Speaker 1: of podcasting. And if you want to create a para
Speaker 1: social relationship with me, you can listen to my podcasts,
Speaker 1: one of which is called Live Like the World Is Dying.
Speaker 1: It's an individual community preparedness podcast. And the other one
Speaker 1: is called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, which is
Speaker 1: all about people who defend libraries from people like you,
Speaker 1: um and anti anti learning nihilist radicals. Yeah, anti library action.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. That's what the l is, isn't it.
Speaker 1: That's that's what that that is why I fly the
Speaker 1: black and gray. I'll just watching alright. Thank yous wants
Speaker 1: to make me an an Arco goth flag that was
Speaker 1: black and then black lace. That's great, thanks for having
Speaker 1: I would fly that al right, Well, thank you for listening. James.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you online? I'm on the internet.
Speaker 1: You can just put in my name at James Stout
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Um. Sometimes I write things I will talk
Speaker 1: about them there. Great, Well you can find me at
Speaker 1: I right, Okay. You can follow the show by cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media and happen here pod and send any complaints
Speaker 1: to at Sorry no send no send any complaints to
Speaker 1: add Okay, okay, yeah, it's okay. I don't read responses.
Speaker 1: Bye bye, bye bye bye. It could happen here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
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