The Birth of Spanish Fascism, Part 1

Conquer your New Year's resolutions with the Before Breakfast podcast. In each bite sized daily episode, you'll learn how to make the most of your time with practical tools to help you feel less busy and get more done. Listen to Before Breakfast on the I Heart Radio app four wherever you get your podcasts. What's Francisco and My Francoes? Yeah, fuzz, there we go. We introduced it. It's not as not as big in an MS Hitler like, I'm gonna be honest with you, not not doesn't have the kind of

star power like if Hitler. Hitler's like like Ben Affleck right uh and and we're doing like the Matt Damon of fascism today. He's just just not the same. That is not accurate. You are completely wrong. You just like his tattoo. Come on, I love I love his trashy, gigantic, fullback phoenix tattoo. Pretty funny, It's right, Okay, Well I think of somebody. It's like a deep He's it's more famous than Ben Affleck will say. It's more like a Scottie Pippen, you know what I'm saying, Like Scottie Pippen

to Hitler's the Michael Jordan of fascism. It is like scott Pippen. We're talking to Scottie Pippen and Scottie Pippen. Francisco Yeah he's a yeah, yeah, Francisco is underrated. You know, he's good. He's not good. He's a monster. Quite a Pippen at a shoe exactly exactly Pippin's. Like we're talking about, like like Franco's, which would be Jack boots almost as tall as the Hitler Jack boots and not quite as shiny coast, but still jack boots and they're little sheep jack.

Yeah for the fascist on a budget. You know. Um, we're trying to talk about the tattoo again. I did. I always want to talk and how hilarious and how sad Ben Affleck looks every time he's captured in the wild. Just looks like he's been dying for the last twenty straight years. And I'm here for it. Love Jack in the Box. It's incredible. He's just so miserable all the time. It just feels like he spent so much time being

attractive that he just got tired of it. It was just like, speaking of fascism, you've heard of the fewer principle, the idea that like a single man can embody the spirit of a people, which is you know what Hitler used to rise to power. I never believed in it until Ben Affleck, because Ben Affleck is the spiritual embodiment of Boston. He's yeah, he's perfect. Yeah, he's really really is.

I Yeah, Like, if the Southeast weren't so damn racist, I would really like that area, you know what I'm saying. But yeah, oh yeah about the Celtics. But I know a bit about fascism, and proper fascism is a little bit different in every country. It's kind of like um, kind of like skittles, you know, different flavors ships, Yeah, yeah, yeah, milk, chocolate, as opposed to the dark. You know, this is part of why scholars and theorists have such a damnable time

defining what fascism is. In the first place, there's a dictionary definition, right, There's gonna be a dictionary definition in any dictionary you open. But it's not really useful, in part because a lot of dictionary definitions of fascism apply almost as well to like communist regimes, any any authoritarian regime, which is, you know, there's there's some points there, which is that whenever you have a totalitarian system, similar bad things often do happen. But fascism is unique for a

number of reasons, including its ability to subvert healthy democracies. Um. And so when you have historians of fascism, people whose whole life is studying this thing, this amorphous thing that we're still kind getting grips on, all of them kind of tend to have their own definitions of it. Um. And often those definitions don't contrast. They just different ways

of kind of wording the same things. I tend to be feel confident that Umberto Echo has done the best job of defining it in his his essay on Earth Fascism. I'm a big fan of the way Echo talked about fascism, and I think that Echo would have named Trump as

a fascist straightaway. Um, in part because in the mid nineties, when he wrote his essay on Earth Fascism, he predicted that the Internet and like the way that it allowed would allow people to spread messages and crowdsource activism, would lead to the rise of a of a unique kind of fascists. And I think that Trump embodied that in a lot of ways, and I think Echo would have seen it right away. Now, on the other hand, I think I may know where you're where echoes going out.

Haven't read the thing, but like, I have this theory about the type of fascist that Trump is, but I'd love to hear what this guy says. Yeah, I mean Echo, Echo kind of outlined a number of different things that are like that are when you have a mix of these things and sort of a constellation that is what

fascism is. So there's a mix of like, you know, popular resentment against the left, like a sense of machismo, of of misogyny, um, a cult of action for action's sake, uh, syncretism, the ability to like pull other things in and kind of attached them to itself under like aspects of spirituality and whatnot. Um, there were a bunch of different things

that that Echo noted as kind of key aspects of fascism. Um, Okay, sorry, you know what we're saying, because I was gonna say, well, it was so interesting about like what I feel, like, what we're gonna hear as history nerds for the next you know, a hundred years, about the unique the what Trump symbolizes and it might just be a new type of fascism for the rest of our life. But just this fascism that doesn't have a foreseeable goal, like except for just being in power, you know what I'm saying.

That was so that's what was so interesting to me about the uniqueness about Trump's fascism is like, yeah, but what's your endgame here? Like what do you what are you doing? You know what I'm saying. Whereas like we knew what Mussolini was doing, we know what you know definitely, and we knew yeah he did it, Like we knew what you were doing. This was your goal, you know what I'm saying. And I'm just like what you're like, Yeah, what are you doing? Dude? You know his lack of

a plan, right, singles dot com. Yeah, apparently Trump saying that because I think that did I think threw some people off, is that he clearly didn't have as much of it like Mussolini. I do think it's more similar to Trump than Hitler's and the kind of fascist that he was and in his goals. But Mussolini had a plan to take and hold power, and I guess one of the things that's been revealed is that like Trump definitely wanted to take and hold power, but he did

not have much of a plan. Not yeah. I was like, your goal is to reach a goal, which is yeah, yeah, your goal was just almost like yeah, He's there's a lot to be said, and I don't know, you just want to keep being right, you know, And I'm like about what, Yeah, anyway, it It's interesting and a number of like, there are other scholars of fascism who took a lot longer to kind of decide that that Trump

fit their definition of fascism. I'm thinking about Robert Paxton here, and Paxton is a very well respected scholar of fascism. He wrote a book called The Anatomy of Fascism that's a very good book, Um, and he only felt comfortable declaring Trump a fascist after January six and he was like,

that was the line, Like it was. Paxtons been consistent, he's an authoritarian, there's fascist elements and what he does, but he didn't kind of name him a fascist until after the sixth And I like, I'm not slamming Paxton. I think there's a room for intellectual debate on toism.

And I understand kind of why he, like, like you said, Trump's a different kind of one, right, and where I fascism changes based on the country and based on the time period, you know, um, And I do think kind of one of the things that Echo was was sort of peering around the edges of when he was talking about how he thought we were going to see an internet based fascism in the future, was the idea that like another aspect of fascism, And he didn't define this

as a key aspect of fascism, but I think that it is is the fascist is the city to find a way to utilize new media technology in a way that no one else understands yet, which Trump did right. No other politician understood how to use social media in the way that Trump did when Trump came onto the scene. Um, it's a big part of his success anyway. So there's

a lot of debate over what is a fascist. And as a result of this debate, there's actually quite a lot of argument on whether or not the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain was truly fascist. And you'll find a lot of argument about this about whether or not Franco was a fascist. There were fascists in Spain, absolutely, whether or not Franco and his regime really counts, um.

And what's not up for debate is that many elements of the Spanish right leading up to enduring the Spanish Civil War were fascists in that Fascist powers Italy and uh in Germany intervened in that civil war because they saw what was happening there as a battle between fascism and socialism largely um and more to the point, whatever you can say about Franco himself, and we'll talk about him more in Part two, the Battle over Spain in the late nineteen thirties absolutely ranks as the first open

military conflict between fascism and democracy and fascism and socialism. To write like all of that was kind of in the mix. And on the Spanish side, the Republican side, you had like the Spanish republic who were you know, liberals more or less people who supported like a constitutional democracy, and you had anarchists and communists and socialists, Severian kind of lesser strains. Trotsky Is too, who were It's a

very complicated civil war. It's more like Syria than than a lot of other conflicts because there's so much going on, so many different different kind of corners to it. It's interesting real quick before you get into this is like, you know, in a past life, I was like a history and social science like high school teacher, and I went through the entire credentialing process all the way up to masters, and at no point in any of our California standards was it ever required to talk about this.

And which is so antio seemed to me to win, especially when I'm trying to set up, you know, because since I wasn't a direct history I was more like a social science teacher, trying to set up how cultures get where they get and like why it was so weird around World War two and why we got so like we was already itchy, why a lot of a lot of us was like, man, we really don't want

to go over there. It's because we was I was like, well, because of the Spanish Civil War, like we kind of you know, who's kind of going back and forth about sending troops over there like it was. And the students were like, wait what and I'm like, yeah, the space. Yes, Spain had a civil war like this happened, like you know what I'm saying. This was like it was right before World War Two, like this happened. It was like

this whole big thing. That's like it's a big thing, and we were involved, like we almost you know I'm saying, but just like that's like in no, thousands of Americans volunteered. Yeah. Yes, And I'm like it's not required to talk about And I'm like, oh my god, this is You're missing this. You're missing a lot of the story if you don't understand why even World War Two was so touchy for us. Yeah,

and part of it was this anyway, go on. One of the reasons people don't like to talk about this is that it is it's very complicated, and it is not as much of a cut and dried story as makes it easy to sort of summarize, right, once the fighting starts, once the Civil war starts, it is a bit easier. But even then, it's a very fucking messy war. And there are really shitty people um on on the good guys side too, right, Like there's a lot of like very ugly stuff that happens because it's a war.

You know. The same is true of World War Two. It's just been heavily whitewashed, and the Nazis were so fucking bad that it makes it a lot easier to

make your side seem like the good dudes. Um Now, in some ways, like because of how complicated it is, and we're going this whole episode is about the birth of Spanish fascism, and we're gonna do some pretty deep history here, um and in in some ways, the story of how fascism evolves in Spain bears a lot less resemblance to what's happened in America than either of the two stories we've discussed so far. But while they're the

similarities are a lot less direct. I actually think there's a lot here that's valuable because we're going to kind of lay out how this evolved over time and how the birth of fascism in Spain was woven into the birth of democracy itself. And I think that's a really important story. Um, but we're gonna need a lot of context. So Spain is unique, fairly unique among European nations, and that it has not had a sense of nationalism from

most of modern history. Um, not in nearly the same way that you got with England, or with France or with Germany once you know, eighteen seventy whatever rolls around. Um, the Spanish state does go back very far to fourteen seventy eight when Ferdinand and Isabella, you know, the Columbus folks, right when they decided to yeah South America, Yeah yeah, yeah.

And before that they were the ones, like Spain, they kick out the Moors, you know, the Muslims who had kind of taken over a chunk of Iberia as a result of the counter into anyway, they take back Spain for Christendom. That would be the way they would have framed it, um. But they don't actually make a nation, not in any modern sense. Spain is a bunch of independent kingdom, and those independent kingdoms up until fairly recently

never really melded together. You've got the Aragonese, and you've got Catalans, and you've got the Basque and they all of their and there's there's more than that, right and this but don't pretend I'm not going to pretend this is Spanish history is incredibly complicated. I am very far from an expert, um. And there are still issues with like a lot of Catalans and a lot of Basque still want like some at least some degree of independence

from the Spanish state. Yeah, recognition from the Yeah. And they all of their own languages and cultural traditions. And one of the things that I learned that's interesting actually is that, um, the the the like Spanish, what we know is Spanish comes from the chunk of like the the language group that was kind of most dominant in Iberia. But they actually stole the word for the country from I think it was the Catalans. So like it's it's

it's very anyway, very complicated history, um. And from most of Spanish history, the only unifying factors of all these very disparate groups of people were the crown, the king, and the Catholic Church. Um, and mainly the Catholic Church. Right now, in the eighteen hundreds, Spain was dominated by a revolution, or Spain was kind of overtaken. Spanish thought was overtaken by a revolution in classical liberalism, right, that sort of takes over a lot of parts of Europe

at this point in time. In Spain is included in that. But in Spain, this kind of new liberal wave largely failed to push for any kind of mass Spanish identity. It didn't like and this is where you start to get like French identity, right and like, but you don't really get that, um, I mean France, it starts earlier than the eighteen hundreds, but like, you don't really get

that in a big way in Spain. And part of the reason is that kind of the cultural elites failed to institute any meaningful education reforms for the majority of the population. UM Like France in the same period, establishes a functional education system, and by contrast, Spain's failure to do this means that education remained the purview of the Catholic Church. They do most of the educating and it's

only for the wealthy. Um and the country would deal with why spread a literacy well into the nineteen hundreds, and when you don't have mass public education one of the things you don't have is a widespread idea of the history and like what your nation is. And like, right, that's part of why anyway, there's not Nationalism is not really much of a thing in Spain. Um as a result of this, they're too busy killing off Americans and they're absolutely that's one of the things. That's where they're

a huge imperial power and someone's there the first world power. Um, like the first power that's like on the on the

level of like what the US was earlier in our lifetimes. Yeah, yeah, knowing like being being a Californian married to a Mexican woman, like you know, you you have to somehow kind of know a little Spanish history as to why these why these Mayans are speaking Spanish, you know what I'm saying, and like and uh, you know, because the part of Mexico she's from there, from southern Mexican Mexico, so like they're they're kind of Mayan, you know what I mean.

And um, but yeah, this like weird, like how they imp exported this like colorism and just this weird. Yeah. But at the same time, Kano, body in your country read you know, so it's just this weird like thing

happening with Spain. Yeah, it's it's very weird and like, if we're going to be completely fair, like if you look at the system of sort of slavery that was instituted in what we now call Latin America, Um, it's it's one of the few systems of slavery and history that's like on the same level as what we had in the American South, like absolutely, and and and and genocides of it. So I'm not trying to like whitewash

Spanish history. What I'm saying. They don't have nationalism. It's just not it's not the same as it is with all and that's what I'm saying. But that's I'm adding to it, like that it's peculiar that they had such an imperialistic power without this like national identity. Yeah, it is. It's very odd. Like Spain is an interesting country to study. Now. The Catholic Church was a major force in Spain for pushing against the development of a modern liberal state. Right

in the eighteen hundreds. You don't really have nations anywhere up until like it started, like that concept kind of starts like in the seventeen hundreds like things shifts a lot less. The idea of like a nation the way that we conceive of one is kind of born in this period seventeen hundreds, and the Catholic Church in Spain really pushes against the modern liberal state. Um. This was largely due to the fact that liberalism had an anti

clerical bias. Right. The Catholic Church for the medieval period is like the most power, the big power in the world. Right, they have influence everywhere in Christendom, and they start to lose it in this period because governments are like, well, where we gonna let a church in Italy tell our government like, we're England. I don't like, I don't give a ship what you said, yeah, um, And the you know, Catholic Catholicism is huge in Spain and the church is like, well,

we don't want any of this ship going on. So Spain the Church pushes against kind of a lot of of modernizing ideas. And one of those things is that Spain failed to develop a modern military system. And while it was again a massive military power, they never do

like what France does. Where you you start this idea of a nation under arms and a modern professional style of the military that takes a lot longer to develop in Spain, and it's part of why they don't do so well when everyone else develops a modern military right and they start losing their empire, both to a combination of European powers taking their ship from them and from a lot of revolutions in places they had controlled that overthrows them um. And so the seventeen hundreds and eighteen

hundreds see a rapid decline in Spanish power. It had been declining before then, but yeah, now the ultimate collapse of Spanish imperialism um really comes in eighteen ninety eight when the United States goes to war with Spain for no reason really and takes over Cuba and the Philippine just because like it's a just randomly just like hey, you want a new imperial power, we could be there

and there. You know, Spain is an unbelievably brutal particularly in the Philippines, and then we take over and we're unbelievably brutal in the Philippines, and the people they're like, oh, you guys, so are we going to have a democracy now? And we're like no, no, no, oh no, we want your ship, like we want your ship. You know, she's setting you free so we can own you. I mean, I don't understand kind of freedom. It's that kind of it's that kind of freedom. Yeah, Like we don't even

let women in our country vote. You think we're gonna let you vote? What are you? What are you talking about? It's motherfucker's so interesting. Yea, nothing changes, it's just your leaders speak English now. I mean, our guns are better. Our guns are a lot better than Spanish guns. They're guns sucked. That's why we're in charge now. Colonialism. So so one of the things that's interesting about Spain is

Lady Late nine. That's like the height of colonialism right before World War One starts like like murders a lot of the great powers that controlled the whole world. So like they are they are writing high. Africa's just been like, you know, murdered, like in a lot of ways, like colonize this avel for Africa's like at its height. You know, Belgium owns the Congo. It's that period. So everyone else who's doing imperialism is doing gang busters, and Spain's empire collapses.

So what happens to everyone else in like the fifties, sixties, seventies, UM really happens to Spain like sixty, a couple of generations earlier. So they actually go through the they're an empire who goes through the collapse of colonialism while everyone else is doing great at colonialism, which is one of

the things that makes them very interesting. So some of the things that happen in colonial powers when their empires collapse, these things that we've seen in Germany and France and England and that we're seeing now in the United States happen in Spain in the late eighteen nineties. Because it's just the stuff that happens when you're an empire that fails.

I find that really interesting. Historian Stanley pain Uh calls eighteen ninety eight the first modern post colonial trauma in Western Europe UM, and I think you do have to view it as a trauma for the people in Spain, and probably the best equivalent to our own society would be the ongoing trauma that a lot of a mayor

organs have faced in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan. And I'm not trying to minimize the traumas faced in those countries as a result of US action, which are commensurately greater. But we've seen in the MAGA movement, right and all of these like that, it's that have come home and stormed the capital and ship like. It is a trauma. It's a trauma where you were an empire that fails. It fox people up who were used to being the empire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

that yeah, that's that's that. I'll find that part, like, you know, as being a black dude being like, you know, we the saying, you know that like a qualities oppression if all you know is privileged, you know what I'm saying. So like when if you're just you're so used to the system working for you, the second it doesn't, you're like something must be broken. You're like, well, no, it was broke. That's why it only worked for you, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, it was always broken.

It was always one of the people it worked for. So yeah, Spain deals with this postcolonial trauma very early, right before the rest before the rest of the Western world, right,

really does because it fails for them. They were the first for it to work, and they were the first that it failed for, which I guess makes sense now Like in the US, all those failing colonial ventures that we had flooded the United States with disaffected veterans debt, and it fueled the rise of a resentful right wing as well as feeling the rise of a dissident left wing right. Both of all of that stuff was really

um incited in a lot of ways by UH. And obviously I'm not calling the dissident left a bad thing. Um But like those horrible colonial wars, we had really fueled a lot of that, And the situation in Spain after eight nine is not all that different. Now, with her years as a great power seemingly behind her, Spanish intellectuals begin to wonder if the sense of exceptionalism that they'd always taken for granted had been based on false premises.

And I'm gonna quote from historian Stanley Pain here. I know, right, interesting, Yeah. Symptomatic of the dismay of the nationalist military was an editorial in El Heraldo Militar on twenty three November nineteen o eight, entitled worst in Anywhere. It declared, wherever we look, we find greater virility than in our own people. In Turkey, Persia, China, the Balkan States, everywhere we find life and energy even in Russia. In Spain there was only apathy and submission.

How sad it is to think about the situation in Spain. Yeah, it kind of feels like us in the coronavirus. We're like, yeah, I think Americans can identify with a lot of Wait, they're hearing here, even if you don't feel it bad you you know the intellectuals in our own society who are saying the same ship, right, yes, yes, Now. The Spanish political system was not at all stable domestically during the period after like while her empire was in free fall,

and that's part of why the empire didn't last. From eighteen o three to the early nineteen hundreds, there were more than a dozen military coups. Between eighteen thirty three and eighteen seventy six, Spain was racked by three civil wars, the Carlist wars, which were not battles against everybody's favorite tertiary Simpson's character, but we're instead members of a conservative,

pro church political movement. The car Lists were the violent, armed wing of Catholics right there were the embodiment of clerical resentment against liberal Spain. They were religious extremists who didn't want the country to modernize UM, and I found a very detailed right up for students on a Lyman dot uk that notes the Carlist wars quote where fought with a fervor and brutality derived from deep divisions within Spain. They also lasted longer than national wars and were more

difficult to resolve. They anticipated the Spanish Civil War in a number of respects. There was a strong element of different and conflicting beliefs within the country, profound traditional Catholicism against modern liberal thought, regional independence against traditional central control, political liberalism against deep conservative monarchism. So this is all the stuff that's been cooking up in the background of Spanish politics at the turn of the twentieth century. Now

partly as a result of the car List Wars. Spain had a relatively underdeveloped right wing in this period because you know, a lot of them gotten killed in wars UM and they been very tied to the Church, So there wasn't as much like a nationalist right wing. It was a Catholic right wing. Now, Spanish nationalism, as I said, was kind of nascent and didn't really start to erupt

into the street until after World War One. In Spain was neutral in World War One, so you think they might be in a better position because they don't really get involved in this ship um and it does delay a lot of political extremism in the country. It's why they don't have, like, you know, a communist movement that's

really a big deal until after the war. The first big street fight in Spain between radical political groups actually happened between two opposed groups of nationalists in nineteen nineteen. Radical Catalanists, which are like big like advocates of Catalan separatism, had been holding peaceful nightly demonstrations in favor of independence throughout nineteen eighteen. In January of nineteen nineteen, a group of right wing Espaniolistas, who are like nationalists violent Spanish

nationalists assaulted this gathering of peaceful Catalanists. Both groups battled it out in the streets of Barcelona and what would soon become a familiar display. The Espaniolistas were a mix of local army officers and men from a group calling itself the Lega Patriotica Espaniola. This violence was soon superseded by a spree of organized political murders by anarcho syndicalists from a labor federation called the C and T. And

this is like unrelated to the national separatism. There's also and we'll talk about anarchism in a second, but a bunch of anarchists extremists start murdering people based on like like, based on class really, um and that brings us a temporary stop to all of the street fighting because the murders bring the cops out against all sorts of what are considered to be political extremists, and it briefly claims it's what we're about to see in the United States,

and it briefly clamps down on all political organization in the streets. Yeah. Now, in most of Western Europe, anarchists tended to be smaller like they weren't fairly rare for anarchists to make a large percentage of political radicals in the European country. Um. And it's much more common for like socialists and communists to be a significant like force, a significant like sized force. Ukraine would be an exist an exception to the we talked about Nestor mcnow on

our our Christmas episodes. UM. And part of why Ukraine had a large and organized anarchist movement is that Ukraine was largely agrarian. And one of the things we see in in like Europe in this period of time is that nations that have a large industrial base and a

lot of industrial workers have a huge communist movement. Nations that are primarily rural and agricultural have a large anarchist movement because anarchists are more common kind of come out of agrarian, rural communities more often than common, because communism is a workers movement. Marks early on in his career was very much like you like kind of wrote off for a long time rural people. Was like, no, it's

all about the workers. It's about industrial like them. You can organize and you can use them to take you know, take over the system basically, and like rural people are kind of a lost cause. And he did change on that later in his life install but like, that's part of why you don't really see communism erupt out of rural areas in this period. You see anarchism when you see left wing experience. Yeah, yeah, so I'm gonna quote it. Yeah,

it's it's interesting, right, I didn't actually thought of that. Yeah, And that's part of why when I think about ways in which to pull people in rural America away from

right wing extremism. I think of more systems like democratic confederalism or libertary municipalism like book chin Um that are kind of more of an out of a more anarchist view because like a lot of these libertarians, I do think you can pull into a more reasonable system that's not right wing extremism, because a lot of their basic ideology is I want to be left alone. And I think you could be like, well, we we want to leave you alone. We just also would like to be

left alone. Can we figure out a way to like yes, yes, yeah. Um. So I'm gonna quote from Lemon dot Uk again on kind of politics and Spain in this period quote capitalist industry had not developed in the same ways that had in Germany, Britain and America, and Spain had little in the way of organized labor. After small scale beginnings in eighteen sixty eight, anarchism came to be a major revolutionary influence of the twentieth century, and was more widely embraced

in Spain than other left wing ideas. The movement first gained notice in the eighteen seventies after a violent incident at the town of Alcoy in eighteen seventy three, when anarchists took advantage of a strike to spread radical ideas, causing the police to fire on the gathered populace. A clampdown was enforced that sent the movement underground. Consequently, it became largely based in rural areas, which were more difficult

to police. Anarchism was reduced to individual acts of terrorism, which in turn were met by repression and torture by the state throughout the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties. By the early twentieth century, terrorism had given way to a belief in anarcho syndicalism. This was the theory that the state could be challenged by cooperative action by the workers and strikes. The Federation of Workers Societies and the of

the Spanish Region was formed in nineteen hundred. This movement organized strikes to exercise political power and was again suppressed. Wage cuts and closures of factories in Barcelona in nineteen o nine, together with a call up of men for a colonial war in Morocco, led to a general strike in the city on twenty six of July. This turned out to be a major event, with seventeen hundred arrests, attacks on railway lines, and anti claire Colism, hostility to

the church. Eighty churches and monasteries were attacked. The government response was swift and merciless, and five leaders were executed. And this is a big thing with like a particularly

anarchist in Spain. They burn a lot of churches down, and they kill a lot of Catholic priests, um and some of that, a lot of that is them murdering people who didn't deserve it, and a lot of them is that is them murdering people who did because the Catholic Church is also terrible, like kind of why yeah, if you're looking for like a pure good guy or a peer victim, you will rarely find it in this Like there are right like obviously I'm not saying like

like there's nuns and ship they get murdered. That's not chill. The Catholic Church is also responsible for horrible repression. It's very messy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're yeah, they you know, they have their own you know, both versions of like bastard episode of like the like the Good Christmas one that's like, oh we Indian North vantages. You know,

I'm saying it's like, oh, that's actually great, you know. Yeah, and there's then there's this, and the Catholic Church is so big because you can also you could obviously we could do multiple episodes and we probably will at some point about the massive and pervasive sexual abuse of children

that was enabled by the Catholic Church. We could could and should also do a Christmas episode on the significant number of priests and nuns in Latin America who were like dogged and constant enemies of US imperialism and writing extremism during like the period when the US was doing most of its fucking around Latin America. All of that's part of the Church's history of that. Like a couple of our hospital bids are actually Catholic. Yeah, yeah, there's

like weird mixed yeah. I I'm not a person who wants to like simplify all this. It's very messy, and this is a messy episode mess by this point, when you've got these anarcho syndicalists organizing and like and and in some cases carrying out not all of them, but some of them carrying out terrorist attacks, and some of those attacks are on shitty people, and some of those attacks are on people who don't deserve it, like it's

very messy. And at the same period of time, you've got Gabrielle de Nunzio in Italy occupying well, I guess, in Yugoslavia occupying the city of Fume. And you've got Mussolini in the early stages of forming his black Shirts and sicking them on left wing newspapers. This is happening contemporaneously to that. You're gonna to like, you're gonna have to release with this one a vocabulary list. You introduced, some new names, some new words. We talked about de

Nunzio and few and I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about the different factions in Spain. Yeah, you said, you said a narco syndicalism. Yeah, anarco. You know what I'm saying, darn O claydo master this bug. Anarcho syndicalists.

The basic idea is that workers need workers who work for like different factories or whatever, who work and farms even need to form syndicates together, to organize kind of like unions, to organize and have syndicates that work together against the state and against capital in order to in some cases just gain better wages for workers in some

cases in order to old against the system. But like it's this idea that different groups of workers need to organize themselves and then work with other organizations of workers rather than having bosses in a strict hierarchy. And they totally need to sell drugs. That's why they call a narcos. Yeah. The good thing about this period is that drugs are

all legal everywhere. Um. So by this point, like I said, de Nunzio is occupying Fume and Mussolini's in the early stages of like forming the black Shirts, Fascism is getting started in Italy um. And in Spain, though anarchists are by far the largest and best organized group of political radicals in the country, the communists aren't really a big factor,

and the right wing isn't really a big factor. It's just kind of the anarchist fighting the government a lot of the time, and the Catholic Church, you know, is kind of a lot of their like supporters are kind of taking the part of right wing organizing, but the car List wars kind of drained them, so it's not a big deal there. Um, And this is not really the case anywhere else that you could think of it,

It's part of why I find Spain so interesting. Fascism, by contrast, had a much slow were time starting off in Spain. Portugal actually beat Spain to the punch when it came to like having fascists um. And it was because a proto nationalist group called Nationalismo Lusitano was formed in Lisbon in nineteen twenty three, and it was directly inspired by Mussolini's Italian fascism. Now a number of other Mussolini want to be sprang up in Europe during this period.

You could even call Hitler at the time of the Beer Hall Putsch kind of like a Mussolini imitator um. But the idea didn't really catch on in Spain, not yet. Uh. Spanish intellectuals were, however, watching Vincent Italy, and one of them, a guy named Fla, suggested that this new political system might just be the thing to help rebuild Spain's failing empire.

He wrote a Fascism as a social movement. It gave voice to a vein of mysticism and idealism that exalted the concept of the patria and its full realization the concept of the fatherland. Yeah. Coffee shop in Compton. Yeah, with some troubling. Yeah. So the name of the game for FUA was national restoration. But Mussolini's fun idea was

popular outside of right wing circles too. There was actually a left wing cattle and separatist movement that found themselves drawn to Italian fascism, particularly it's emphasis on militia based direct action. And they weren't fascists. They didn't embrace, for example, Mussolini's doctrine of therapeutic violence, you know, the cult of

violence for violence's sake. Um. They just liked, number one, the imagery of this non state group of armed people marching in order to take power for themselves, and they wanted to do that. So, like the left is when we talked about this in our first episode, a lot of folks who are just kind of hate the system play with both fascist and anarchists and left and right wing ideas throughout this period of time. Um. Also, I like that you brought up Portugal because I feel like

they always fly on it a radar. They do. They just everybody just not notice and they could just exist in the shadows. They was the first in Africa, you know what I'm saying. So yeah, like nobody like how do why I talk about portable? And they're also the case of a country that was incredibly powerful and want I is to funckload of the world and then collapsed

before the rest of colonialism did. And you see the same thing happened in Portugal where all these authoritarians start coming into power because there's the sense of like, we need a strong man. And this is like intellectuals in Spain will be like, we have to or in Portugal will be like, we can't have a republic for a while. We have to have basically a dictator come in because

he needs to fix everything. Like we have all these problems, we can't argue we just need one visionary to come And it's not quite fascism, but it's it has a lot of elements of that, right, So um, Robert, can you hit ad Rick real quick? You know what else

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from sorry. If by strong man you mean a strong Sophie that keeps us in and placed in, yes, these ads have elements of fascism, but it's a good fascism. It's a fast it's a fast ship, fashion fashion, fashionist, which is fine. Fine, it's fine, it's fine, and we we appreciate our podcast Dictators, So our podcast rules with an iron fist. Uh. It does operate a system of political re education camps, but that is a story for another episode. So in late nine, Spain gained its first

real fascist party, the Tresistas. They wore a blue uniform because blue is the color of the working class for the right wing red as the colors the working class for the left wing right. Like, I know, I know, it's yeah. Uh, and we got it backwards here, which is weird, right. Um. Yeah, they wore a blue uniform and they hope to spread throughout the country. But the organization fizzle. There just wasn't any real interest in fascism

in Spain in this period. Now, while political fascism failed to gain meaningful purchase in Spain, during this time, fascist thought and inclinations were spreading among a lot of influential Spanish thought leaders and particularly within the military and military officers. Much of this had to do with the rise of the revolutionary left in the eighteen nineties, these anarchists that

I was talking about. In his landmark book Fascism in Spain, scholar Stanley Pain notes that the military resistance to the left had less to do with politics than you might expect. Officers largely accepted moderate left wing social and economic aims, and there was even a strong strain of anti capitalist thought among Spanish military leaders. Despite this, pain rights army officers demanded suppression of the left, disorder, violence and subversion

of national unity. Again, it's this The military's big problem with the left is they're disordered right there, trying to tear down this system, and we're we're doing pretty well in this system. And it's the thing that is always the case, right um. The military itself was also heavily divided in this time, not a political lines, but between bureaucratic officers on the peninsula itself and combat officers who

had spent time fighting in Spain's last colonial possession, Northern Morocco. So, Spain's most of its empires has collapsed right now, but they have Northern Morocco, and Spain had gotten Morocco basically during the last stages of the scramble for Africa, and it was it was given to them by France and England, who you might notice don't have the right to give Morocco to any but they did, and it was due to like diplomatic support that Spain gave them, Like it

was literally like it was them the way that like a normal person be like, hey man, i'll help you move if you help me set up my sound system this week. Like that's how Spain got Morocco. It's very yeah, it's you know, it's it's a bullshit. It's also a beautiful country, gorgeous yeah. Um. Now, so they were given the right to occupy the land by France and England and nineteen o six and exchange for diplomatic support. And Spain's conquest of Morocco was kind of like the first

one night stand you have after a breakup. They just had like a big you know, they needed something to boost their confidence after losing to the United States. UM and Spain turned out to be pretty bad at conquering Morocco. Their control never amounted to much more than a few towns, cities, and roads on the coast. Much of the territory and its people refused to yield, and in nineteen one, a charismatic Moroccan leader named Abdul Kareem rose an army and

launched what became known as the Riffy Insurrection. For a time, it was the strongest rebellion against colonialism anywhere in the Afro Asian world. Like, these guys actually do great um for a while, you know, uh. Now, the war attracted ambitious young Spanish officers eager to make a name for themselves. One of these guys was a fellow named Francisco Franco,

who rose to the rank of colonel fighting the insurgents. Now, Francisco and a lot of young officers were very frustrated by the corrupt and bureaucratic nature of the military, which had not seen a major reorganization or modernization in decades. It was a lot in a lot of ways like an Napoleonic army with somewhat better guns, which is why part of the way they're getting their asses kicked now.

Franco and a number of other officers formed military councils of like minded officers and lobbied for reforms, and some of those reforms were successful, but nothing they did was enough to write the inertia. In early nineteen one, the Spanish army launched an offensive into northern Morocco from the coastal territories they held. Now, because the people in charge were idiots, they didn't properly prepare lines of communication, and

they almost immediately advanced beyond their supply lines. No defensible forts were left behind to secure supply routes or water, and on July twenty, after five days of skirmish is, a force of five thousand Spanish troops were attacked by three thousand riff fighters. This should have been an easy win for a European military, but the Spanish had poor organization and we're basically out of AMMO because they'd outrun

their supply lines. So the Riffs, the riffy like overrun the Spanish army and they advanced like several hundred miles, slaughtering Spanish soldiers, taking over supply depots and positions as they go. The Spanish army shot entirely. They lose more than thirteen thousand men wounded in a matter of days, and the Riffs suffer around eight hundred casualties. This is like a like one of the worst defeats suffered by any colonial power in Africa. It is they get their

assets handed to m hmm. The defeat was so extensive and so shameful that the Spanish general committed suicide in the field and his remains were never found. Um, like it is they it is yeah, and the riff. This whole instruction is fascinating to read about because like these guys fucking have it on lockdown, you know. Um, it is hard to imagine how shattering this was to the people of Spain and their image of themselves, and how

much it disrupted Spanish politics. The military was, of course enraged, and even though the failures were entirely their own, they blame their failures on the support of the civilian government. It's y'all's fault. Well, we're bad at war. Yeah, Well I didn't lose this war. Yeah, yeah, I mean you see it on the right here where it's like it was the liberals and like the left that lost us the wars and no, you were we suck at this.

We're bad at it. Look make it okay. We're bad at it and it's bad it was you shouldn't have been at the first place. Yeah, if we fucking stopped this ship in like I don't know, nineteen forty five, we'd still be like, you know, what we're good at is war. Don't have to do it often, you're good at it. We saw uh now again, Yeah, it really fox up a lot in Spain at this period of time. Um and obviously the Liberal government is also enraged, largely at the cost in Spanish life and treasure in this

colonial adventure. And in early September ninety three Liberal ministers resign in protests because the military draws up plans for a new offensive and Morocco and they're like, come on, guys, like you just got your asses kicked. This isn't terrible fellas. He can not take the message. It's bad, bad catalysts who didn't even really want to be part of Spain, let alone send their sons to die and fucking Morocco. For Spain held a huge rally in Barcelona where the

Spanish flag was dragged through the ground. This really pisses off the military, and it pisses off a bunch of senior generals, most prominently a career military man from a career military family named Miguel Primo de Rivera, now as the Captain General of Barcelona, the guy in charge of the military in Barcelona. De Rivera was a desk officer, not an African veteran, and that's kind of like the

break between the army. But he sides with the African veterans, and he sees this liberal government as having failed his illustrious Spanish army. He also had seen Mussolini's March on Rome in ninety two, and while he is not a fascist, he really likes Mussolini, and the BArch on Rome convinces him that with the army behind him, he could force an into the parliamentary politics that he that felt were

holding the military back. And I'm gonna quote now from a book called Fascism in Spain about like this revolt that de Rivera leads. The revolt began in Barcelona as a classic pronounca miento, I'm sorry, space um, with a local takeover in the Catalan capital by its captain general, who called upon the rest of the army and other patriotic Spaniards to rally round. In fact, also in the traditional style, all but one of the other captains general

at first sat on their fence. The pronunca miento h succeeded above all because the Liberal government did almost nothing to defend itself. The issue was finally decided two days later by the crown as Alfonso the Eight, without invoking constitutional limits or procedures transferred power to what would become the first direct military dictatorship in Spanish history. Primo de Rivera gave no evidence of any explicit theory or plan.

His assumption of power was at first predicated on a ninety day emergency military directory to deal with such problems as attempted subversion, the stalemate, and Morocco administrative corruption and political reform. In fact, his only professed ideology was constitutional liberalism.

He insisted that the Constitution of eighteen seventy six remained the law of the land, and initially denied that he was a dictator in any genuine sense, insisting in his first public statement, no one can with justice apply that term to me. Of course everyone since has called him a dictator. Yeah, the years of yeah, what is it about? I have two questions about this, Like I forget what figure,

what what history? And I heard to say it, but he was just talking about like just generals, like they all kind of have this like diva gene, like just just kind of Diva's you know what I'm saying, Like it's kind of hard to like what is that? So that's like my first thing. It's very deep in in Western civilization particularly right, Like you have to look back to Rome at this stuff. So the way generals in

Rome were treated. Number one, if you were general in Rome and you had a major military victory, the Senate would vote for you to have what was called a try mp, which is where you were all but in all but named king for a day of Rome, and there was the whole city had this huge party for you, and all of your trophies of war were dragged through the streets and like, because you were so powerful and

so like basically worshiped that day. It was that one guy's whole job to stand next to you the whole time and throughout the day whisper to you you will die at one point, like you're going to die someday. Like that was like like that that, like, and Rome constantly had civil wars that were the result of generals taking their armies and taking power. It happened all of the fucking time. It's why you got Caesar. It's why

it stopped being a republic. You know. One of the reasons why the United States military is organized the way it is and why there's such if you look at like some of the ship the military was saying at the end of Trump's time, like, why they had so many statements about the military having no role in the elections is because from the beginning the founders of this country were like, that's going to be a problems. We're

gonna have military. That's gonna be And at first a lot of them were like, we shouldn't have a military. Why would you, like it always is a problem. Let's just have a bunch of militias, you know, which there's something to be said for that. M Yeah, anyway, but like, yeah, yeah, they are Diva's Like, if you're going to take the responsibility for the lives of tens of thousands of men into your own personal control, you've got to be a

little bit of a diva. Yeah, it seemed like, yeah, so obviously everyone today calls Primo de Rivera a dictatorship. The years of his leadership are generally known in Spanish history as la dictadura uh and this was met like his his coming to power was met by a lot less resistance than you might guess. Spain was exhausted by years of political bickering, foreign policy setbacks, in economic frustration.

Several years earlier, political theorists in Portugal had talked about the need to bring in a temporary dictator, what they called an iron surgeon, to solve intractable problems. And Primo de Rivere was one of a lot of strong men who came to power throughout Europe in this period who weren't fascists, although they often admired fascists and took some ideas from them. Um. But de Rivera doesn't really have

an ideology. He's just wants to like fix things and figures is enough of a narcissist that he's like, I know how to do this. Um. And while dear Vera wasn't a fascist, his brief reign would help further lay the groundwork for fascism in Spain, and the war that he brought to Morocco was in many ways a prelude of fascist wars of extermination to come, only it was waged with the help of his allies the French. Oh yeah, after the Spanish army broke an annual which is that

big battle where they lose thirteen thousand dudes. The Abdel Kareem, who was the guy in charge of the reef um and his his his like, I don't know what you wanna call them, I'll call them revolutionaries established a republic. Now, France, who just fought a whole war, you know, World War One, was the right of national self determination, and who were a republic themselves, did not like that Abdel Kareem and his reriff had established a republican Morocco because they're afraid

they own a bunch of Africa. They own a bunch of Africa near Morocco. People are going to hear that there's a republic that isn't run by Europe and they're gonna they're they're not gonna want to have us in charge anymore. Like, wait, this is an option, yeah option, Yeah, yeah, you can't have a democracy and not you yeah yeah, kind of like that. Yeah. France is like, no, that's not that's not gonna happen at an option, not an option,

Not an option. So they decide to enter the war against the Riff on Spain's side to crush the rebels. In nineteen twenty five, France and de Rivera's reformed Spanish army begin a counter offensive against the Riff. Now leading things on the French side was a fellow named Marshall Patain, hero of the Battle of Verdun during World War One, and the guy who would become the leader of vich France during World War Two. He's the guy who collaborates

with the Nazis. Um now, but tell you at this point, yeah, I know, he's a real piece of Shitmpkins didn't kill this guy. He's a He's a war hero at this point too, though, because he he led France through the Battle over Dune. Is. If you're making a shortlist of the very worst battles in the entire history of human warfare, for Done might be number one, you know, Stred. There's a couple of other like, but it's it is, It's in, It's in the running. You know. It's horrible, like a

million people die. It's a terrible, terrible battle. So he's a big war hero. And when he decides he wants to go to Morocco, the French government is going to give him everything he asks for. So he puts together a force of a hundred and fifty thousand men to face abdel Kareem's tribesmen, who were very well organized and good fighters, but they numbered just twenty thousand. The offensive started with one of the first Yeah, amphibious landings. Yeah,

there's no like Gandalf showing up and helping. No, we don't, we don't. We don't get a Gandolf in this story. So you are outgunned and outman. Yeah, you guys are just like you're fucked. It's it's a bummer um. And this amphibious landing is started spearheaded by young colonel named Francisco Franco, who led the soldiers of the Spanish Foreign Legion into battle. Now you have seen the Spanish Foreign lead. Um.

Everyone in America pretty much did. Because at the start of the coronavirus lockdown, when Spain had a lockdown and brought in the military to help, there were pictures of a bunch of very jacked and very handsome Spanish soldiers and incredibly tight fitting uniforms marching down the streets of Barcelona, and a bunch of US liberals were like, oh my god, they're so hot. Why can't we have those soldiers here.

I'm gonna tell you the backstory of those soldiers because those were the men of the Spanish Foreign Legion, and it's not a great back story. So it's crazy. It was crazy about like the geography right now, like I don't noticed backstory that you're about to say, but I'm just picturing the geography because off the Costa del Soul at the edge of of the edge of Spain to the tip of Tangiers in Morocco, it's just the Merediterranean. See it's a ninety minute boat ride. Yeah, it's so far.

It's not far. You it's almost like you could sit in Morocco and watch him, like, yeah, he'd come to Spanish. You can get Spain to Africa in the time you would get a quarter of the way across Texas, right, Like it's nothing, it really is. Yeah, do they know who designed the uniforms. We're going to talk about why the uniforms look the way they do. Yeah, So the Spanish Foreign Legion were founded. He's not a pointy motherfucker. No, No,

they're hot. They're hot. They're hot. They're they're they're like a nice they are they are, but they are they are hot. Nobody's arguing that they're not hot subjectively way too tight. Yeah, no, one is arguing that they're not good looking men. We're not going to disagree about this, but problematic. So they're found the Spanish Foreign Legion was founded in nineteen nineteen in mimicry of the French Foreign Legion, since Spain was also mimicking French ambitions in North Africa

at this point. The founder of the Legion was a guy named Milan Astray, a veteran of Spain's brutal war in the Philippines and of the fighting in Morocco, and he wanted to create a colonial army for Spain that

they used to regain some of their lost glory. He created an interlocking series as he founded, like when he founded the Foreign Legion, he wanted them to be brutal, because if you're going to keep a colonial possession, you have to murder a lot of people, right, that's how colonialism where you have to kill a lot of people. And so your soldiers have to be soulless, broken men in order to gun down the proper number of children to keep an empire. Um, these he wanted his shock troops.

And yeah, I mean in fine as hell, Um she just sent me. That's why it's good. God, God, I know, I know. Like the reaction is like the Spanish Foreign Legion today look like characters in like they look like characters in a pornography, like they don't look like soldiers, they look like fake soldiers from a sleazy porn yes, um, yes, yeah, and they kind of did then, so stray in order to make sure these guys are as brutal as possible, creates for them an interlocking series of hazing rituals with

goal with like shattering these men's souls. And he wants to explicitly is like, I want to separate these men from their past lives and unify them in quote brotherhood and death. Now, Milan Australia was a big fan of the Bushido code of the Samurai. Yeah, I know, I know all of these fucking guys, and he cribs from Bushido um to write his own Legionary creed. What's emphasized tireless duty, bodily hardness, which is why they're all jacked,

unconditional brotherhood and fighting to the death. And I'm gonna quote from a write up and Prospect magazine on the Foreign Legion here. Many of these themes were common across fascist movements and the military's they influenced, but others were distinct to the Legion. Legionary swore to become bride grooms of Death, from the title of a popular song about a legionnaire's sacrifice in the roof, renouncing familial and romantic bonds and sublimating them into loyalty to each other and

the Legion's flag. You are married to death. Death is your wife. She's like, I'm married to the streets. You're not married to the game. You're married to death. So if you think these guys are hot, I have bad news for you. They're fucking the Grim Reaper. Yeah, they're sorry. You don't. You don't attract him. You are to a laugh at me. That's not my type. Yeah. Um, so these these guys, the reason why they have these shirts with like really open weird necklines, um, is that I'm sorry,

I'm gonna need you to rephrase that. What's week about that? They're showing it off. They are showing it off. It's also meant to emphasize their willingness to fight in the hot desert air. Um. And the green is from like the color it's like early camouflage. Yeah, this is what I wish was normal, Sophie. They are married to the concept of murdering children. I'm sorry, I mean, I'm not here for that, but the old dog like right said, the pants are subjectively too tight, but like, go ahead,

this is not functional. It's a nice pastel mint color. You know. No today this uniforms like functional? Yeah. Not. You have to be married to death because nothing about this says you ready to survive. Like kind of look like if the tin man from The Wizard of Oz worked at Baskin Robbins and had to go do a porno shoot later. So Franco and his Franco and his foreign legionman were the tip of the spear of the French and Spanish governments thrust into the heart of Morocco.

You did, Yeah, I know, I know, Sophie. But we're about to talk about genocide. Okay, okay, but you don't know what you just did there. You know what, we need to take a break. The spear doesn't just mean to take a break, Robert, alright, we're gonna go to ads. Are gonna go to ads, and then we're going to talk about a colonial genocide. Yes, hi, I'm Robert lamp

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near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. Look for your children's eyes to see the true magic of a forest. It's a storybook world for them. You look and see a tree. They see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms outstretched to the sky. They see treasure and pebbles. They see a windy path that could lead to adventure, and they see you. They're fearless. Guide. Is this fascinating world? Find

a forest near you and start exploring. And Discover the Forest dot org brought to you by the United States Force Service and the AD Council. Alright, alright, we're back, and we are no longer talking about hot guys. Were talking about the genocide those hot guys helped commit. Well kind of brought it up like that. You know what

you're doing, bro, I don't. I'm trying to emphasize that sometimes things that look nice are also fashy as hell, and sometimes sometimes the good looks will stick it to you. So the overwhelming force, well overwhelming force now anyway, Yeah, they just thrust their goddamn damn it. Okay, what you're doing. Okay, I know I'm trying to talk about the use of chemical war weapons upon civilians. But I've never wished Jamie Loftus was here more. I am fairly glad she would

completely She's a professional at this. The French in the Spanish have so many soldiers in so much high grade military hardware that there is no chance the riff are going to actually win. Victory was only a matter of time. But de Rivera and Marshall Pattaine were not willing to wait, and so they started using chemical weapons to slaughter tribes people in mass and they're not using them on military forces. They first start bombarding the city of Tangier with fos

gene gas, which is a deadly chemical weapon. It's what they used in the trenches. It chokes people to death on their own, rotting lungs um. It's horrific stuff. The Spanish army began pounding the outskirts of the town uh and as soon as Spanish forces started gassing tribes people, other commanders in the country begged to be able to do the same. One Spanish general wrote his desire to

use them, them being chemical weapons with delight. This was all very good for France, who profited not just from stidity in northern Africa, but because they were willing they were selling Spain the gas, they also profited financially. I'm gonna quote from an article on the website r S twenty one here. It was in fact a French business Schneider, which in nineteen twenty two helped to open a plant for the production of toxic shells in Malila, and indeed

the French made an official one. French General leout Lee made an official request to his supervisors for provisions of chemical weapons in June ninet, justifying that the use of these munitions with their toxic power allows us to spare human lives during our attacks. In face of these bombs dropped the most populated regions of the territories controlled by Abdel Cream, the Riffians tried to fight back with non explosive projectiles as well as making shells charged with pepper power,

with little success. Right up to the end of the Rift War, the Spanish army would continue to use these lethal gases with the support of the French forces with martial patain at their head. In Morocco, so spare human life. They attacked civilian targets with chemical weapons. They like. So, look hear me out. I didn't shoot him, I gassed him and his family. He just he died from the air. Yeah, it's some real We had to destroy the village to save it vibes. Yeah, So Victory and Morocco started the

dictator's time and power off. We're talking about de Rivera here. With widespread popular support, he created a political party, the UP, the Patriotic Union, whose motto was monarchy, fatherland, and religion. His mouthpieces at the UP declared that the de Rivery dictatorship was only a transitional thing, and that the military dictatorship would eventually be replaced with a civil dictatorship. So this military dictatorship just temporary. We got a civil dictator.

It's gonna be fine. It's great to be a different, good, totally reasonable kind of dictatorships. It's cool. Yeah, yeah, now

this would be different. Yeah. So, the Patriotic Union or the UP was mostly composed of middle class conservative Catholic Spaniards, and historian Stanley Pain notes that in some provinces, sectors of the old political elite did join and dominate, but the organization also incorporated ordinary middle class people who had not previously been politically active, so in spite of the fact that electoral politics didn't exist during de Riveriaus dictatorship,

it served a purpose of rallying and in some ways activating the middle class as a political entity. The up's goal was to ensure some form of right wing dictatorship remained the permanent government of Spain, and much of their support came from their victory in Morocco and their success in for the first time igniting widespread nationalism among the

Spanish population. The UP held the country's first mass rallies and for a while De Rivera and his party were popular, but by nineteen twenty nine, the worldwide economic crash had started to hit Spain as well. The wealthy financiers who backed his regime started to sour on him and some of his interventionalist economic policies. At the same time, De Rivera faced growing resistance from students, who were a political factor for the first time in Spain due to the

fact that the dictatorship had reformed the education system. In his last years in power, Rivera sought to stay dickt Hater by taking a leaf from the Book of a Man. He idolized Benito Mussolini. And this is the first time de Riveri actually kind of goes fascist. I'm gonna quote

from the history of Spanish Fascism here. Italian diplomatic correspondence from Madrid in the final days of nineteen twenty nine reported that Primo de Rivera was indicating that he would soon begin a fundamental reorganization of the up along the lines of the Fascist Party. This reorganization never got started, as Javier to Sell and Ismael Sas have written with the Spanish dictator felt for Mussolini was considerably more than

platonic admiration. He was pathetically incapable of transferring Italian institutions to Spain, and was often infantile in his effusive expressions to Mussolini. So he wants to be a fascist by this point, and he's like, he's kind of simping on on Mussolini. Yeah, just like you're so good. I just want to do what you do. Why can't I be as cool as you? Um, it's it's kind of saying he's an old man too. At this point, he's not

doing great. Um. It is very weird. He's a Mussoli need stand hardcore, but he just doesn't have what it takes to be a fascist dictator. He just he's only a normal dictator. You know, you hate to see it. In January of ninety this dictator was ship canned by his king, who followed him out the door. About a year or so later, because popular support for the monarchy collapsed as a result of the dictatorship, for a brief, awkward period, Spain lacked any kind of legitimate government. It's

king in parliament were gone. A short succession of strong men held powers that national political elite struggled to cobble together some kind of functional government. The whole experience further radicalized the middle class, this time activating large numbers of Spanish liberals who advocated in the streets for a republican government.

In nineteen thirty one, the Spanish Republic was born. Now, this did not thrill a lot of people, like it thrilled people a lot of people, but it also kind of piste off a lot of people, particularly young military officers who had supported the dictatorship. Um Francisco Fraco was

one of these frustrated men. He'd been a close student of Primo de Rivera and had liked his unofficial title of national boss, like hefe nationalism, yeah, that's yeah, yeah, hefe nacionale is kind of what they And he was like, I like that idea. I like me and everybody's boss. Yeah. All the years of dictatorship proved to Franco that a strong man could unify Spain, bring law and order in military victory. The only error that de Rivera had made in Franco's mind was that he didn't have any kind

of ideology. Franco didn't really believe in anything other than like, I'm the guy who can fix Spain. And when you don't have that concerted kind of ideology, you can't hold together a dictatorship very long unless you're willing to be brutal and promote. You know, he was not a great guy, very brutal in Morocco, but was not willing to be brutal in Spain. Not really not compared to any other dictator,

you know, Franco. Franco was with him in Spain, I mean was with him in Morocco, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, Franco was like he was a colonel in Morocco, and so and one of the like. People will say that like de Rivera was a bloodless dictator, which again looking at what happened in Morocco, not true. But if you're living in Spain, he's not mass executing people. He's not even mass imprisoning people. He's not hosting huge executions of

his political enemies. He's a pretty if you're in Spain, a pretty mild dictator, about as mild as they get this century, you know, which is not to like whitewashing anything. It's just like part of why he doesn't stay in power along. You know, you've got to be more brutal than he is if you're going to hold power as a dictator. Now, Primo de Rivera's fall from power was also a lesson to Benito Mussolini. It convinced him that his regime could not afford to compromise its power at

all with an elected parliament. This was in Mussolini saw basically like, ah, the only option I have to become so authoritarian that no one can push me out. And as a result, de Rivera's fall was a major It

pushes Mussolini to spring towards more radical authoritarian policy. In nineteen thirty two, um, all of this stuff is interconnected, you know, just like everything, just like just like the Syrian Civil War is directly connected to White president Donald Trump became the press it, you know, like it's all everything always is connected. That's the way the world works. The Spanish Republic would have just five years of pre

war existence. For its first two years, the socialists dominated the government, so not like hardcore communists, but definitely like left wing. Um the first two years, the left is dominating the Republic. For the next to a center right counter reformation pushes back against the gains of the left.

The tug of war was largely in politics between socialists, Republican centrists, and Catholic conservatives, and the Catholic Conservatives, starting in nineteen thirty three, were represented by Spain's first mass Catholic political party and first really powerful right wing political party, the c E d A. And' not even gonna try to tell you what it stands, what we're calling CEDA, you know, that's the that's the that's the birth of like the organized political right in Spain in a way

that actually is able to take some power. The SEDA was the primary home for the conservative middle class who had been radicalized first by Primo de Rivera's dictatorship and next by the early years of left wing power in

the Republic. And they're being radicalized both by the fact that the socialist or in power and they're doing the things socialists do, which is in part to say the church is not going to have power, like we're not going to like let the Catholic church run things, but also by the like the anarchists who are still fucking

up churches and stuff in this period of time. So it's it's the same it is here you've got kind of these more moderate people on the left, and then you've got people on the left in the streets doing things that scare these religious conservatives and make them decide like we have to take back our country. That happens in Spain too. It's a familiar story again to everyone

listening um Now. A number of socialist laws were passed that clamped down on the power and prestige of the church in this period, and obviously they were again widespread, like there were anarchists attacked fifty convicts in Madrid in nineteen thirty one, and again this helps energize the right. It's also if you're a Spanish anarchist who grew up living under a Catholic church that did all of the kind of fucked up ship we know the Catholic Church

to do. Nobody's again, nobody is a monster here. While there are sponsors, we're about to tell about them. Um. But yeah, this enraged fundamentalists and the c e d a like because of how angry they were at the left. The SITA is never a party that accepts the necessity of democracy, right. They want to take power and institute a Catholic state. They don't believe the Republic that they're participating in is legitimate, which also sounds familiar to her dominions.

Yeah the dominionists. Okay, yeah, yeah, Now again, while this is all going on, the radical left in Spain tried several times to carry out insurrections against the republic. So the anarchists, because they're anarchists, do try to overthrow the republic because they don't like the republic either for different reasons than the c E d a UM. In some cases, they even fought alongside communists. Communists and anarchists are pretty good at working together in this period, compared to how

they'll be later. Uh they attack police stations, and in nineteen thirty four they succeed in taking over large chunks of the state of a Sturius. This insurrection got far enough that the Republic called in their Imperial Shock troops the Foreign Legion, who rutally suppressed the revolt by massacurring basically everybody they could, um just gunning people down in huge numbers. The thing, the only thing that they do. You know, That's why you have these guys to murder everybody,

to put everybody down. Everybody shut up when I get there. Everybody airbody sitting down. We do not have machine guns because we're good at being like a discriminating with our violence. We have machine guns because it makes it faster. You know. It sounds like Stephanie, she just come in and everything. I'm not asking who did what, whites is broke? Everybody sitting down? Your aunt who comes in with the fucking sandal and just started like you need to saying. She

called in with the check blasts. Everbody getting it? I don't got no, I don't want to hear nothing. Everybody getting up the CNT. Who's that? Anarcho Syndicalist party launches constant strikes in this period, largely because they're angry that

the Republic had failed to rest it. So when the Republic comes to power, the far left is like, because the far left our anarchists, and they're agricultural right there, primarily in rural areas, and most of Spain's agricultural land like more is owned by just like rich assholes who make the people who are actually farming it pay them unreasonable rent and it like keeps them impoverished. And the radical left is like, we should the land should belong

to the people who farm it. Yeah, maybe, why why don't we do that? But I understand we got a lot of radical thoughts. This don't feel radical, Yeah, it doesn't like it isn't the time, it shouldn't be. Yeah, this really shouldn't be a radical't um. The Republic being a republic, gave them some of what they want, but

not much. They redistribute about ten percent of Spain's uncultivated land of the peasants, and that really pisses off the anarchists, so they launch a bunch of In addition to these insurrections that other anarchists are doing, the C and T is doing like strikes and stuff in this period, as protests. In nineteen thirty three, a peasant protests was suppressed by

Republican police who shot nineteen of them dead. Um. So this government, which is broadly speaking we'll call it a liberal government, is a government they still you know, gunn people down when you funk up, right, Like yeah. Now, the constant unrest damaged the left middle class support, and the in fighting between communists, anarchists and Republicans hurt the broadly speaking liberal and left ability to keep control of

the government from the right. In nineteen thirty four, the c E d A, led by Jose Marie gil Robles, became the dominant power in government um, or at least gained a lot of power in government. This provoked outrage from the span like they weren't in control or anything, but they had power for the first time. This really piste off the Spanish left because in the rest of Europe at the same time, Hitler has just consolidated all

of his power and destroyed by our democracy. Italy is completely fascist now, um and there's dictators all throughout Europe. So the left sees the c E d A gain some power and they're like this is the start of what we're seeing happen. The fascists are going to take over. They're not wrong to be terrified that way, because it is what happens, you know, like it's happening. That's because it's going to happen. It's happening here, they say, and

they're not wrong. Yeah. Um So again, the left in Spain, and when I say the left in this sense, I mean both like the liberals, the anarchists, the communists, socialists, like all of them, start to get really panicked. And this fear is reinforced by the fact that Gil Roblez consistently gave speeches ranting against democracy and in favor of

what he called a totalitarian concept of the state. Uh Stanley payin rights quote, it seems fairly clear that the c e d as basic intentions were to win decisive political power through legal means, the exception being an ill defined emergency situation, and then to enact fundamental revisions to the new Republican Constitution which restricted Catholic rights in order to protect religion and property and alter the basic political system.

So again, they're not out of line to be afraid of what is going to happen by the c e d A gaining power. Left wing fear that the c e d A would be bring fascism to Spain were further stoked by the fact that c E d A magazines kelpt running huge, loving articles about how good fascism was. They would have like these huge spreads about fascist Italy and what a perfect state it was. There were articles about the Nazi regime in Germany. Now, broadly speaking, the

Spanish far right is more Italian fascists than German. For one thing, they don't really get the anti Semitism, like like everyone in Europe, they're kind of anti Semitic, but it's not organizing principle for them. Um and the Nazis they see. It's like kind of weird, but like still, you know, they're they're they're better than the left. But yeah, it's like I get what y'all going for. I really understand this part, but I don't know this. But yeah, we kicked out the Muslims. I mean, I guess just

the same, but I don't know anyway. Yeah, so Robles even visit The guy in charge of the c E d A even visited Germany in nineteen thirty three to attend the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. So again the c E d A is not entirely a fascist party, but the left in Spain, and this time calls them objectively fascist. And you can see why. Now. For his part, Robs only really rejected fascism because he saw it as foreign.

During a speech in nineteen thirty three, he said, we want a totalitarian Patria, but it is strange that we're invited to look for novelties abroad when we find a unitary in totalitarian policy in our own tradition. So he's like fascism, like, I like it, but it's foreign, and we in Spain have our own totalitarian tradition that we should be embracing. And when he said this, he was actually referencing Ferdinand and Isabella, the first Spanish monarchs who

were not totalitarian. It wasn't you couldn't be back then, you just like, yeah, exists, but yeah, yeah, it's very silly and very a historical um. In the same speech, Robles continued, for us power must be integral for the realization of our ideal. We shall not be held back by archaic forms. When the time comes, Parliament where I will either submit or disappear. Democracy must be a means, not an end. We are going to liquidate the revolution, liquidate, liquidate.

So yeah, in addition to the c D e D A who if you don't want to call him fascists, they're at least pretty close low sodium yes, yeah, low sodium fascist like that. They're like diet mountain dew, like you don't want to go all the way, but on the spectrum. Now, Spain also had its own explicitly fascist political parties. And when I don't call the c E D A fascist, it's because I do want to differentiate between the people who are like, we're fascists, you know,

like it is important to do that. Um that grew involved throughout the yearly nineteen thirties. Now, the founding father of Spanish fascism was a guy named Ramiro Ledesmo Ramos Ramos, and like most fascist intellectuals, he wanted to be a novelist before he got into politics, and he wrote a

fake memoir of it, like he's it's very been Shapiro. Okay, Yeah, he wrote a fiction novel which was a fake memoir about a depressed intellectual who commits sue aside um, which seems like it was very self pitying, and nobody will He writes it when he's eighteen, nobody's willing to take it, and his rich uncle pays to publish it, which tells you all you need to know about the Desma, the fascist,

the father of Spanish fascism. So as the pseudo intellectual, Le Desma's greatest concern was that Spanish culture had not given the world a truly dominant political ideology. He complained, we are the only great people who have still not borne the philosophical scepter, and who therefore have not projected in an intellectual dictatorship over the world. And so as a result of this, he decided to steal a political

system from Italy and become a fascist. He eventually formed the Junta's Dealfensiva Nacional Sinde Calista or John's and his followers are called the john Sistas, which is silly, but that's what they're called. Yeah. Le Desma and his fellow john Cistas refused to call themselves fascists, but they were. They talked lovingly of Italian fascism and they wanted the

same things. One of Le Desma's first followers was the Spanish translator for Hitler's mind comp But to his credit, Ledesma did try to find ways to make Spanish fascism unique. In part, he attempted to do this by marrying it to Spanish anarcho syndicalism. Ledesma adopted syndicalism, the idea of worker councils governing themselves and striking to make their demands mets or adopted aspects of that, and he kind of

awkwardly welded it to Spanish revolutionary nationalism. And one of the things that is odd that characterizes Spanish fascists in this period is they really reach out to the anarchists. They're trying to convert anarchists, um, in part because the anarchists are like the most vital anti government movement in this period. Yeah, it's yeah, yeah, it was reading the tea leaves of being like, you know, I think you don't like the same ship we don't like. Yeah, maybe,

and it happens for some of them, right. Like that is a story that's very uncomfortable about anarchist history is that during the period of time when fascism rises and a number of anarchists in different countries, and an uncomfortable number of them decide, now, you know what, I'm a fascist, which is not. Yeah, and it's it's important, you know, whatever, whatever you believe to be honest about its history, and that includes the ugly parts um so Ledesma and his

fellow John Ceasta has refused to call them. And also we're going to talk in part two about the fact that a funkload of anarchists died fighting fascism in Spain. And we're a lot of the very first people who were willing to put their lives on the line to fight global fascism before the United States was willing to

fight the Nazis. A funkload of anarchists died fighting fascism, and I like, I'm not trying to to say that that like, and that's much more dominant a part of anarchist history totally than the ones who went fashion, but a number of them do go fascists, and it's something the fascists directly try to encourage. Um it's like the like the like the black Trump Yeah exactly exactly. Look, there's there's still that's still na and it doesn't erase the fact that Biden only won the election because of

a funkload of organized black voters, you know, yes, yeah. So, like the left wing of the Nazi Party had done, Ledesma sought to make fascism collectivists, stressing that the individual has died and that the collectivest state is all that matters. This was not an initially successful line of propaganda, and by the end of nineteen thirty two there were barely

any John Ceasta's Uh. Spanish fascism might not have taken off at all if it had not been for a fellow named Jose Antonio de Rivera, the son of the now dead dictator um So de Rivera's kid becomes like really the first prominent Spanish fascist. And one of the things, this guy is such a figure in Spanish history that he's one of the only people from this period of Spanish history who's known by his first names. He's Jose Antonio. They don't call it like they call his dad de Rivera.

He's Jose Antonio, which is like kind of a mark of how significant this guy was. Now, Jose was a weird fascist, and we'll talk more about him in part two. He is not like other He's not nearly. For one thing, he doesn't really like violence in the same way that a lot of fascists do. And he's like weird friendly with a lot of socialists, like in government, like like he's he's like like and not in a I don't know, he's a he's a very weird fascist. His background, though,

makes complete sense. He's the rich son of a military family whose father took almost absolute power in order to murder foreigners and steal their ship. So it's not weird that he becomes a fascist. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, just you know, it's like representation matters, Like you have to see something to believe that it's possible. So he's, yeah, my dad took over the country. Yeah, I mean I

bet I can too. Yeah. Yeah, And you can see him as like kind of what I'm sure one of the Trump kids will try to do, although I would argue he's a better person thanity of the Trump kids. Yea. So he creates his own fascist party based on the idea of bringing in another dictator like his dad, but not sucking at it this time, right, Like we need

a dictator. My dad had the right idea, but he didn't have an ideology I'm going to bring in an ideology, and both Jose Antonio's party and the john Sistas receive a shot in the arm. On January three, when Hitler takes power in Germany, a magazine l Fashion, which is a very subtle name. Yeah, dug it. So Hitler takes power in Germany and El Fascio gets launched in Spain and the government shuts that ship down right away and bands publication the future editions, which is like when did

do Outlook? You want to you need you need your brand to be clear, Yeah, you need to be clear. So com We're talking a lot in the United States now about the value of d platforming fascists, about the and I'm an advocate for aspects of that, about the value of of taking away these people's ability to reach a mass audience. They do a harder, much harder core

version of that. In Spain. You get in. One of the things that's unique about Spain is the police in this period cracked down on the fascists more than they do on the left. Um, which is weird. Um, It's a unique historically everywhere else it is the opposite um. And part of why is because the republic is very

scared of these ashes for good reason. And if we're looking at like the effectiveness of de platforming to what extent it works, Spain shows us that it doesn't necessarily stop them from gaining power because they d platform the fascists. They try hard to d platform the fascists in the

Spanish Republic, it doesn't do the trick. Um. So again, useful historical context here, which is not to say there's no value in d platforming, but we should be paying attention to what happened in Spain U and the d platform against Spain is being done by the government, you know, um, by cops and ship Now, the Law for the Defense of the Republic gave the Spanish Republic power to ban

anything that threatened the republic's existence. Banning fascist propaganda, though, was not enough to stop the contagious excitement over fascism and the broader right wing reaction against the recent victories of the left. The john Sistas and Jose Antonio's movement grew. Jose Antonio was noted as not being particularly charismatic, but he was good with words, and he was a successful lawyer,

so he had money. He entered into frequent public debates with left wing intellectuals where he would say off like this, so again he's a big kind of like Richard Spencer. I will go down and sit down and talk with all of your I'll be very nice, We'll be very polite, and I'll talk about fascism in that way. He's that kind of fascist. Um quote this is this is Jose Antonio from a debate he had with kind of a more liberal guy. The liberal state believes in nothing, not

even in itself. It watches with folded arms, is all sorts of experiments, even those aimed at the destruction of the state itself. Fascism was born to light of faith. Neither of the right, which at the bottom aspires to preserve everything, even the unjust, nor of the left, which at the bottom aspires to destroy everything, even the just,

but a collective, integral national faith. And you can see why people would be appealed to as for things like we're not right when we're not left wing, they're both bad. Were something different. And he also the thing that all fascists have to do in order to succeed is point out things that are true and problems with the system, and he does. The liberal state believes in nothing, not even in itself. You know, that's a good, true statement. Aod,

that's good. Yeah, yeah, and that's part of why again, that's part of what he does. Succeed in bringing in some people from the left to the fascists and converting people, um, and at least in getting a lot of them to be like, well, he's not that, he's not as bad as the state. You know, a lot of people will say that in July of night, and a lot of people don't. By the way, anarchists murder eight we'll talk about this bart to murder a funkload of fascists in

this period. So when I say a number of people on the left are like, well, he's not as bad as the state, a lot of people not like no, they're bad and we have to start shooting them to death now, So like, yeah, let's not. It's a lot lots going on. Um, you said in the beginning, this is messy. Yeah. Yeah. In July of nineteen thirty four, the John Ceast has launched an attack on the Madrid offices of the Friends of the USS are damaging the

offices and threatening people with pistols. This caused a government crackdown both on the fascists and on the anarchists, arresting some three thousand people nationwide. Again, like we'll probably about to see this is what the government does, like you know, I mean in fairness, like right now, the anarchists are not doing much other than standing outside of buildings and breaking windows and this they were gunning people down. So yeah, yeah, um,

it's yeah. I don't want to like try to make the case that Spanish history is exactly, but like you, I think there are useful parallels. So one of the things again, Spanish police did arrest more fascists and more willing, were more willing to um than other members of the left or the members of the left at this point. Um. And in fact, the first two years of Jose Antonio's movement, anarchists assassinated and gunned down and stabbed a funkload of

fascists and brawls and outside of speeches. Um. Now, Jose Antonio was fairly unique among fascists, both in that he had genuinely warm and respectful relationships with a lot of left wing politicians and that he seemed to a poor violence. Uh. This was a problem for his young party and we'll talk about that more in part two now. In October of nineteen thirty four, Jose Antonio traveled to Spain for a brief meeting with Mussolini and to tour a fascist state.

He found it inspiring, and he wrote, Fascism is not just in a Talian movement. It is a total universal sense of life. Italy was the first to apply it. But it is not the concept of the state as an instrument in the service of a permanent historical mission valid outside of Italy. Who can say that such goals are only valuable for Italians. He returned from Italy eager to make and so again the John Ceased is the

other chunk of the fascist movement. Are like, we don't want to do it a fascism, Italian fascism because we were Spanish Spain. Yeah. Jose Antonio is like, no, no, no. Fascism is a global thing and it appeals to all of us. And he returns from Spain eager to make a deal with the Jones Ceistas in order to emerge both movements. He recognizes, your propaganda is better. I have more people, I've got I'm better at like organizing the street movement. If we work together, we can bring fascism

to Spain. In early November, both groups of fascists came to an agreement. They initially wanted to use the name Fascismo espaniol but decided to change this to Falange Espaniola, which means Spanish fay links. The Phalanges would in time go on to earn a terrible and bloody reputation in Spanish history, but that it's going to be in Part two A lot of history. Oh man, this is dope. One.

It's like for every uh, I love the like for every kid that you know, either it's set next to or was the little stoner kid that was like drawing the anarchist a on their folder in high school. That was just like no rules, Like no, it's a it's a real thing. It's yeah, it's an ideology. It's not just you not getting suspended for you know, slapping a kid. It's a real thing. It's a way to organize the world in society. That in a bunch of different ideas, right,

the anarchist syndicalists have one. There's a lot of different added and there are also anarchists like an arco primitivists and stuff. Who don't want to or who like want to go back to them. More like there's a bunch of ship within anarchy. Yeah, but it's not you with your little drawing, your little a on your skateboard, you know, a little shits. That's how it starts. And I will say I've seen a lot of people in Portland do very interesting things with skateboards, a lot of teenage anarchists

this year. That's that's how it starts for some people, you know. Okay, okay, okay, that's if that's if that's the entry. It's deeper than that. There's a lot going on, you know, And it's just like, this doesn't mean that you never have to read again. You have to. You have to read a lot, okay, you know. Yeah, yeah, I named him Chad. I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, that's yeah. I think I think we could stand to convert more of the Chad's um. Anyway. This has been part one,

the birth of Spanish Fascism. In part two, we're going to talk about the Spanish Civil War, which is one of the most fascinating and important pieces of history that almost no one knows a goddamn thing about. Um talkingrustrating, it's very so frustrating. People don't know about this. You know, so many few people know that, like the author of George Orwell traveled to Spain on the premise that every single decent person should kill one fascist, and then it

killed a punch of fascists with grenades. George Orwell was incredible with grenades. He all the different kinds of grenades. He killed a lot of people with grenades. He got shot in the throat. Oh my god. Yeah, I'm gonna give you this as another piece of trivia that has to do with the another hip hop trivia. Um that you this good Easter egg for your listener and then for you just I think you might find this interesting and pull this out one day when you're drinking with friends.

Um iced tea, the not the drink. But yeah, yeah yeah. Rapper became the actor in Law and Order, the guy that made an album called cop Killer and became a cop on TV. Yeah, you greatest hustle ever. Anyway, there's this story he tells that about when he was getting his record deal and he the as as the legend goes, he never played one song for the people he that signed him for his first record deal, right, and they

were like, how are you going to do this? How are we gonna Why would you sign if we haven't heard any music. He goes, hey, if you're selling a box of grenades, if I blow up a grenade, I need to blow up a grenade for you to see, for you to know that they're good. Like, I can't blow it up because then you won't buy them. They already done. And then the guy was like, man, that's yeah, so I see. And the guy was like, it's actually a good point. And then he goes, what made you

think of that? He goes, why I used to sell grenades? And I totally believe that he was around South Central selling your nates. I would never call iced Te a liar for saying that he sold grenades. Absolutely not. He comes from a you know, you've got your eras of gangster rap where they're just talking, and then you've got your era of gangs rappords like, no, you did all

of the things you're talking about. This. This is why you're not in jails, because there was a period of time for you where you were like, it was a good day because I didn't have to use my These are stories, y'all. Yeah, yeah, that's why most of them didn't make it very long. Y Yeah, all right, Well, in preparation for the Spanish Civil War, which is pretty gangster, listen, listen to some old school iced tea, you know, and then watch the Law and Order, you know, really embrace

the hypocrisy that we all embody at some point. At some point, you don't need to watch the iced Tea and cocoa reality show though I am not recommending that, but a little bit of Law in Order. You know, it's whatever it's on literally at all times. Yeah, it's a lot like it's a lot like Heroin. You know, Um, it's probably not going to kill you, um, but it's bad for you. Every episode of Laundered Spue, I'm not ashamed at all every episode because it's on at any

given time of a day. Yeah, exactly. My mom's nospel. We watched every episode because it was always on every episode. There's a belief in some Aboriginal Australian cultures and this is kind of where the um, what is the long tube that they blow? Ever? No, no, no, the the did you reid? That the dig red ties into this that like you always have to be someone always has to be playing music because you sing the world into being,

and if the music stops, the world ends. And I have adopted as a religious belief that with law and order SVU where it's playing somewhere, the world can continue. I think that's how we ended up with Trump. Everybody turned off the TV one day in order to stop playing one hour without law and order and everything. Which ship all right? Well, this this has been a part one of our two partner of Behind the Insurrections on

the Spanish Fascist Franko Civil War. We're we'll talk about Spanish Civil War in part two, and then next week we're going to talk about the Fascists who failed UM, and we're gonna talk about we're gonna get a little overview of some anti fascist history you might not know. We're gonna close out with antifa UM and some fun stuff like the the idolist pirates UM, which we're a little kids who murdered Nazis is great fucking rad Alright, here we go listen to some iced tea. That's the episode.

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