Hello, and welcome to cool People did cool stuff. You're a weekly reminder that we can do cool stuff with the one chance we have it being alive. I'm your host, Margaret Giljoy with me today is James Hi. James, how are you.
Hi, Margaret. I'm good. I'm good, very very controverted. You to eraise the concept of what's it called when you come back to life after you die? Reincarnation not come through joke?
Yeah, no, well, the one chance we know of. Our producer is Sophie Hi. Sophie Hi, our audio engineers Ian Hi Ian. Everyone wants to say I in Hi Yan Hian. Our theme musical is written for us by un woman, and this week we are talking about resistance to Franco the fascist dictator of Spain. In particular, we're following Francisco Sabata, also known as al Chico. World War two has just ended, so he snuck himself back into fascist Spain and is starting to raise funds for a gorilla struggle and let's
go all that stolen money. It goes into the hands of the CNT, which was underground and trying to do everything from support the kids of dead anarchists to destroy the fascist regime in Spain. No money is actually going to the robbers personally. For the most part, Leonner is actually supporting the family in France by working as a house cleaner, plus probably whatever El Chico makes as a plumber when he's home, which, like, I feel like it's fine to get compensated fairly for your labor as a
bank robber. But I still appreciate that they they weren't doing this to get rich.
You know.
Yeah, they like meant it that quote from before about being like weird libertarian freedom fighters. Yeah, So, together with the CNT, the three Gorillas, El Qiko, El Absinio, and El Rosette, they free two anarchists and a communist from fascist hands. And this is like, it's funny because they freed a bunch of people already, including themselves several times. But this is like where they kind of come out onto the world stage a little bit when they do this.
But they show up and they they free the three prisoners, and as they're running to the car, the communist is apparently like, never mind, I don't want to jail break.
I just love fucking rules. Such a committed tanky like see a boot I want to lick.
It, and so he goes back to jail voluntarily.
Wow.
At least according to the anarchist history book I read, Okay, I doesn't see them, having been like, oh, whoops, wait, you've got two anarchists and a tanky.
Yeah. The guy gets out there and immediately, like you, get logs onto his Twitter and starts posting about how he's going to send him to the Gulag and then all right, you go fucking back right now.
Yeah, totally, yeah, exactly. We thought we knew you better than that. Yeah, but you'll be shocked to know that after the war, not all of the former Synicalists were cool and good. Some joined the National Syndicalists aka the fascist left. There was at least one double agent and ex anarchist who worked for the new cops but was like, oh no, totally, I'm totally working for you all the anarchists,
definitely who was working for the cops. He would help the anarchists while they were being super boring and ineffective, and then inform on them as soon as they did anything spicy and anywhere the anarchists were doing anything like, the cops would know about it and show up what it could Yeah, not a good guy. He spoiler alert. Not a way to live very long. Fortunately, the Gorillas didn't espouse to be under anyone's control, not the labor
movement or whatever. They were working for the CNT and an arcosyndicalism in general, but not under its authority, so they were actually way harder to repress. The CNT was pretty mad about this, especially the CNT in France, like the people who would like run run away is the wrong word. The people who were refugees because they would get murdered. They some of them are very mad at Sabate. Throughout the rest of his career, the Gorilla movement was, though,
and this still matters, it was very organized. It wasn't just like, hey, let's go fuck up Franco as shit and get ourselves killed and I know I'm going to like stick a lot to the like and here's where they blew this thing up, and here's where they shot this guy, and the like cool actions or whatever. But it was like mostly most of their work was organizing.
From nineteen forty five to nineteen forty six, Sabate and the others set up base after base in the mountains, which is the refuge for all radicals everywhere, for comrades and guns. He and his family moved still in France, so he goes back up to France, back and forth all the time, moves way closer to the border, and
he starts moving guns and explosives into Fascist Spain. At one point with four others in some tiny town near the border, cops pull a gun on them, so they one of them kills that cop, and they of have to go hide all the material and lie low because all the cops show up, you know, because for somebody else happened like that. Yeah, so they hit the guns and a ton of places and including a big old pilum anewer. Oh yeah. Sabate only got out by dressing
as a peasant. He was like holding a scythe and walking around as a peasant while a woman from the village walked behind him carrying a submachine gun for him in a basket of food.
Extremely let's see the cat National anthems and the second or it is like the scithers. Oh shit, okay, cool, it's extremely Catalan move. It's about the revolt with the size.
Yeah that rules.
Yeah.
Unfortunately the innkeeper went to go snitch voluntarily. He was like, ah, I know it's up, and the cops tortured the shit out of him.
Well, yeah, just what it is. The state violence comes for us all.
I went to the fascist cops and they were mean to me.
Yeah they new news. Yeah they did find the guns and the pile of ship. Well at least I had to go into a pile of shit. I know, I know.
And the fascist feds in Barcelona in particular, working hard to beat the gorillas. They traced to communicate to a guy's typewriter and then like tortured the shit out of him until he gave up a meeting spot, which led the folks to the Feds to al El Absinio and our guy, the Abscenian was greeted at home with a hail of gunfire and he died before he had a chance to draw his gun.
That's sad, I know.
And l Rosette gets arrested at his house during all of this, and they're like this is gonna come up, Like L Rosette rules, Sabote just wants to lure cops. At this point, he's like, oh fuck, one of my friends is dead. The other ones arrested he's like, you know what, the cops are surrounding his parents' house, right, and he's like, I'm just gonna lure them into the open and fight them, just just fucking have it out.
Yeah.
And his remaining friends are like, don't fucking do that. What the fuck, Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you? And he listens to his friends and he doesn't go out in a useless way. Yeah, but he did need to get to his parents' house because his brother Jose had returned from prison at this point and he was at the family house and Sabate and well ol Kiko wanted to go see him. So he just walks through the police lines as if he's some regular guy,
Like I'm a regular guy. What's going on over there?
Yeah, famous efficiency of space police.
Well, and then in the Spanish police thought that they would absolutely find him because l Rosette was being held in a cop car on orders of you better point out Sabate when you see him, or will fucking kill you. And so he was like, oh, sure, I will definitely do that. I will absolutely inform on this man. I fought a war with completely, that's my plan. When Sabate walked by. El Rosette was like, no, that's not him, that's just some guy.
Amazing. Yeah, the entire force of the state come to Barron. You any results in them being conned by someone being liken it like yeah, totally moving on. Yeah, and their orders were absolutely to kill on site. Uh So l Rosette saves his life, I believe, I can't remember. I think at spends the rest of his life in prison, spends decades in prison.
Yeah.
Al Kko makes contact with Jose and they reunite more properly in the mountains of France, and they're like, yeah, let's get this ship fucking done. Luigi has entered the chat the Plumber brothers, I don't know if you is a plumber.
Yeah.
And the Gorilla's form, Yeah, someone knows them. My kid's lost to history. It's like, no, y, I only have a week to research these things, so I can only read like one and a half books and like five
or six articles and you know. Anyway, So the Gorilla's form, the MLR, the Spanish Liberation Resistance movement basically declaring autonomy from and hopefully shielding their like proper began to only type friends, right it's their way of being like, we are not the CNT, Please stop killing the CNT just because we do shit. Yeah it, I mean it sort of works. I mean they're still going to the Feds, are still going to just kill the CNT whenever they can,
you know. But public enemy number one for the anarchists right now is this guy Alicio melis Dis, who's the former anarchist turned cop who is destroying the resistance movement. Because this is a fast and furious plot, the anarchists made Plan H I don't know what stands for, which was that they were not going to just kill this guy, but they were going to bring him down and reveal all the other traders too. They only half succeeded. They kidnap him, but he fought back, so they had to
kill him after he killed one of them. Yeah, so they did kill this guy. But and then they came out with the communicate to announce the MLR quote in the future, we will respond to governmental terrorism with the people's terrorism. We shall answer the murderer's bullets of the uniformed gunmen with the pistols and machine guns of the m people of the MLR will carry out sentence on all traders, as they have already done in the case of the notorious Alicio Meles of Unhappy Memory.
It's another great one for your EMAO signature. Yeah yeah.
Yeah. And all the while Sabote is going back and forth to France and spending making sure to spend time with the kids. I actually think he like, genuinely really liked his family and like spending time with them and stuff. You know, he does. He moves his family. He has
more kids. Now, why with the biographer mentioned to talk about his kids instead of going on several pages about someone whom he doesn't even meet, who blows up his own leg with a grenade anyway, moves them closer to the border, and a quote young comrade moves in to help with the chores. Well, he's gone. I don't know that this is a this person needs a place to stay, or our house needs more sources of income, or maybe it's a polyamory thing. I don't I don't know his
household includes more people now. He also gets really into farming for a little while, him and his mule dig a bunch of ditches to move water around, and soon he's growing melons and everyone's like Damn, we didn't know you could grow melons here. That rules your melons are great.
So yeah, what a math?
Yeah yeah, his domestic piece doesn't last. At one point, while he's in Spain, his house is raided in connection to some expropriation and the French police find a stash of bombs and grenades and guns. He's tried in absentia and is found guilty. This doesn't stop him. You'll be
shocked to know, Yeah, shocked. He's in Spain, he starts working with the Libertarian Prisoner Support group, providing the money to provide for the families of imprisoned anarchists, and him and Jose are now getting money the old fashioned way, robbing the rich. Another one of his crew was named Tragapanas, which Google Translate tells me means swallow, but I think it means the bread eater.
Yeah.
Bread, Yeah, because he was all always hungry and he was always eating.
It's just like a constantly shoving baggetts into his mouth. Yeah, like he gets a power up, you know, he eats. Yeah, he grows larger. I just like all their names. We're going to Spanish nickname into Germany. Phenomenal.
Another tier yeah, and he is always for a while at least, he's always one step ahead of the cops. Time and time again he counter ambushes the cops line and wait for him, usually with a Tommy gun. He always carried a Tommy gun under his coat.
Very nice. Yeah, yeah, from the US, I guess supplying the French machis. Maybe he got it that way.
That makes sense because a lot of it's stand guns, which is another type of submachine gun.
Yeah, the British ones, but the guns really to make too, Okay, I've seen some stand guns.
To the Tommy gun was like kind of his signature, and since he was a bank robber named a kid, it just sort of makes sense that he.
Got Yeah, and you know, they were also obsessed with I think we've talked about this before with like Gangster Ship in Chicago.
That's right.
They called by the Barcelona Chinatown, not particularly because I had a large number of Asian people, because they were like, yeah, this has vibes of Chicago's Chinatown that we've seen in films. Yeah, maybe it was like a vibe. Maybe he was like, yeah, this is what I wanted to when I've seen this in films.
I'm the kid, but he's not chomping a cigar because that man is sober and doesn't smoke.
But he did go to me again.
That was that's you know what, that's a more iconic and more influential thing.
Like I like to think of him with a chocolate cigar as well. Yeah, totally bumbleming, living clean and carefree. Yeah.
His crew worked with another crew for a while called Los Manos the Hands when they tried to kill Barcelona Minister of Police. That two groups actually met because they were both plotting to kill this guy. And I think they like maybe like saw each other on a steak. I'm not entirely sure how both of them trying to kill this guy got them in touch, but they teamed up. They they didn't succeed at this. It was a good plan.
They knew the guy's schedule, they knew his car, they knew he drove down the following row in the following car every day, and so they did some grand theft auto shit where both teams stole some cars and then
showed up and they're stolen cars. El Kiko actually like did the thing that actually has come up in a couple other episodes too, where he like his car is broken down and making air quotes here you can't see them because it's an audio medium, and he's like looking at the engine of his car, being like, oh, what's going on with my car? But he has a Tommy gun under his coat or whatever.
Yeah.
Classic, Yeah, And so the car comes by and they shoot it up and they killed two fascists, just not the one they were looking for. Some other people were driving it that day.
Yeah.
It's sad.
I know the cops already hated the anarchists, but now they hate them even more. They cracked down on all of Barcelona. There became an informal curfew because all evening entertainment was regularly broken up by cops demanding people's papers, so no one would do anything after eight pm. There wasn't any curfew. There was just a we will fuck you up if you do anything. Yeah, because fashions dinner and wow, that's an interesting point.
Yeah, like ten pm is your gamal like having did it with friends.
Yeah, And for a while, anyone who hailed a cab was as likely as not taken to the police station to have their identity verified. Damn, which to be fair, I mean one there's a lot of people in Barcelona, not all of them are anarchists, but it is how most of the action groups were getting around was just cabs. They just all took cabs all the time.
But the CNT had been the cab Driver's Union was an anarchist union previously. That makes a lot of sense. That ties to a lot of this. That's why you're such a good guess for this. Thanks for being our guest. Thank you, Margaret, Thank you for having me. I'm enjoying myself this part.
Cops started murdering random people because they got so jumpy that anyone reaching for a wallet was sometimes shot.
Unprecedented.
Imagine cops shooting innocent people mistaking walks for guns.
I'm glad that hasn't happened since we fixed it.
Yeah. No, absolutely only fascist societies. Only fascist cops too.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Luckily we don't have to stay overreaching America.
No.
Now, Fascism is a specific form of government with no similar characteristics to any other form of government.
Can only come from the Fascia reachion of Italy.
It's not miss Selenius.
Yeah, it's just sparkling authoritarianism.
Yeah. So the anarchists were like well, fuck you too, and some did a drive by on some cops. They wounded two of the cops. The police commissioner got so afraid of being assassinate that he wouldn't go home and he started staying at the office, which was surrounded by police at all times, who were ordered to shoot anyone or any car that came within like fifty yards of the police station.
You know, you got him on the run.
Yeah, And then that the cops stationed that there were cops stationed in the sewers beneath the building.
Oh yeah. The anarchist loved a good sewer as well. They were big on sewer operations.
That makes sense. Yeah, it's because they're ninja turtles.
I think in thirty eight they tried thirty nine, they tried to blow up the police station from underneath in the sewer and look out for being wet or something. But yeah, a known method, Nos, only that would be thirty five they six anyway.
Yeah, so during this particular pushback, there was all of these things, and then the cops got even more mad, And I'm like, how can they get more mad? They're already a fascist dictatorship and hate the cops and the murdering everyone, but there's just so many anarchists that there's still more to murder at any given point. Yeah, the cops came the closest they've been to the Sava table. They raided a rail worker's house. I think just coincidentally.
They just like fucking with people, and they were like, well, look this guy, so they raided his house. The brothers and a friend were sleeping inside. A gunfight broke out and it left one cop dead, another cop injured. One anarchist named Jose a different Jose on Death's Door, and then Jose Sabate was shot through the chest the Jose on Death's Door. He was arrested after demanding Jose Sabate
leave him, and was executed by the fascist regime. Years later, in nineteen fifty, he wrote a last letter to his wife.
I'm not going to quote it. It just makes me sad, but he told her to stay close with the family and that he loved her because I just want to humanize some of these people as much as Yeah, but Jose Sabat, with a fucking hole in his chest, held up some security guards at a factory at gunpoint, and then they actually just helped him make a bandage for the wound. This is like, there's going to be a lot of times where people do this. Oh yeah, he seems like a nice guy.
Yeah, so they like take off the shirt, you know. He's like, give me your shirt so I can make a bandage, and they're like, okay, but let me help you when they make a bandage for him, and then he swam across a river and made it eight miles off foot to a safe house.
Wow. Yeah, that is some true chat shit, Like, yeah, with a hole in his chest.
Yeah, he went to a anti fascist doctor and was like, yo, doc, what's up. And the doctor was like, well, you got about as lucky as a guy who got shot in the chest can be because it passed through that hit in any vital organs.
Oh wow, yeah, not much space, said, it's not Vike logans.
Yeah, no, I know. But the house he was planning on staying at, so he decided to go stay and recuperate at this one house, this safe house. But it wasn't safe. It was being occupied. It was being watched from an occupied house next door, and they needed a way out. So the anarchists pulled a prank on the cops.
They sent one of their Okay, so the head of one of the police forces was an ex anarchist and now a fascist, and so they sent one of their doesn't seem like a militant any more friends to go meet up with his friend, the head of the police, the former anarchist, and the secretly down guy is just like, man, isn't it weird? The other cops not your group, but the group of cops that you're kind of in conflict with over like who gets to, you know, pissing rights
in this part of town. They've occupied a house and so the cops are like, oh, fuck, someone's on our turf.
They raid the other cops.
They yeah, more or less they at least go argue in a fairly confrontational way. Yeah, and Jose escapes into confusion.
Amazing the two. Yeah, fantastic.
Yeah, it's not just it's not that this guy's life would be a movie. It's that this guy's life would be the Fast and Furious eight movies.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Both also been simultaneously like too crazy to be fictionized and unbelievable.
Yeah totally. What else is un believable? Are these deals?
Oh? Magnificent? Thanks? Thanks?
Yeah, I mean, oh yeah, I'm just really just don't clap. One thing you do is.
Yeah, yeah saying I was gonna say one thing Margaret killed he loves is selling products. Yeah, totally engaging in the cash nexers. Yeah, that's absolutely what I'm so excited about. And here you go, here's the ads, and we're back. So the two brothers are like, we should get out of Spain again. Let's go to Toulouse, which is not in Spain, it's in France. It's very nice sitting and at one point Francisco pretended to be recently released from an asylum.
Guy.
He always had these disguises. He's like, oh yeah, right, and this time he's like, ooh, I just got out of the madhouse. And then at one point he goes up to a peasant and he robs the peasant of his cart and he's like, can I give you like fifty grand for your cart? Which is me converting very badly, trying to use the internet to convert nineteen forties that set us to modern dollars. Gives the guy like fifty grand for his cart, and the guy's like, yeah, you can have my cart.
Yeah, it sounds like a good deal.
He just basically like changed this man's class position. Yeah, that man's children do bad than life because robbed by sabote.
Lucrative cart deal.
Yeah, but there's one problem. He went back to France, but Alkiko had been tried in absentia by the French, you know, because the French were like, well it was fine when you had bombs in France to free France from fascists, but remember how you're not allowed to have bombs in France to free Spain from fascists.
Yeah, yeah, I remember how we learned so much from like taking the Ellen a war and on population surviving and defending freedom. Yeah, let to make sure that can't happen again.
No, not, absolutely not. He made a good try for it. He was at home and Leoner just distracted the cops at the door while he escaped out the attic. But the cops sick dogs on him and got him, and he spent a year in French prison and then five years on probation where he was stuck in de Jon, which is a place in France where sparkling mustard comes from.
Yeah, I've lost some skin in that town. Oh shit, I ass biker. Oh yeah, yeah, not a bad gambling debt. Yeah no, no, no. Literally, parts of my body was scraped off by the rose of Jean.
Okay, okay, yeah yeah, much like it's scraped five years off of Sabate's prime fighting life. Meanwhile, the struggle continued. More and more anarchists are getting gunned down, including those who had tried to stay legal within fascist Spain. Enter Manuel Sabate, the youngest Sabate brother. He hadn't been ten
years old when the Civil War started. When he was sixteen and civil war was over, he traveled around as a train hopper for a while, Like literally he got a knapsack and rode around on freight trains because the anarchist traditions I continue across the oceans, I guess. But he was an adult now and there was adult stuff that needed doing, like stopping fascism. So he made his way into France and started working at a cooperative near the border. And his gorilla brothers were like, oh god,
don't join us, learn a trade, live your life. We are doomed, do you know that?
Right?
Like we are fucking dead men walking. Try telling that to a twenty year old anarchist. His brothers told all the anarchist groups. You can't let our baby brother join you. For Jose, the dead men walking thing came true the earliest. On October seventeenth, nineteen forty nine, Jose was successfully trapped on the streets of Barcelona and basically went down in a hail gunfire, killing one of the cops who murdered him.
And with Alqiko in jail and Jose dead in Spain, Manuel was like, well, I'm joining a fucking action group and now my brothers can't stop me. And the first thing they did is they tried to pull a grand theft auto but the car didn't stop, so they shot it up and they injured a young serving girl who was not exactly the class enemy for anyone who's keeping track. Soon the area was swarming with cops. Manuel Sabate was arrested and basically when the cops figured out his last name, they killed him.
Ah fuck.
On February twenty fourth, nineteen fifty, the winner of nineteen forty nine to nineteen fifty, the fascists took out most of the action groups. This is the end of the time when they are common. Every named character we've had until now, besides for al Qiko and Leoner are dead, the hands the bread eater dead. I think Rosette is just in prison. The thing is, though they had done a lot of good and popular descent was picking up. Even as the action groups were getting gunned down, they
kept the flame alive in a lot of ways. Protests started up. It started with students, of course, as it kind of always does, and it moved to workers. In nineteen fifty one, there's a general strike in Barcelona. It spread from there. More than one hundred and fifty thousand workers went on strike. Soldiers had to be shipped in from Madrid to put it down. The repression, though, made its way to France also. Southern France was full of Spanish anarchists at this point. They were the largest chunk
of the exiles from Spain by a fair amount. So when a couple of anarchists tried to rob an armored car in France and some guards were killed, the press denounced the anarchists and the courts started rounding people up. But there was one problem. Everyone really liked the anarchists. They were like generally nice and upstanding people who like probably weren't hiding what they were about.
You know. Yeah, there was going about not hurting people who weren't hurting them, as ikis should do.
Yeah. So when once Spanish anarchist guerrilla was arrested and to lose in France, Spain was like extradite him, please, he is a crime guy, and France was like, we're actually not even going to consider your request.
Yeah.
Nice, and he was set free.
Oh yeah.
The French police were not as nice as Sabote. They arrested him again in nineteen fifty one and tortured a confession out of him having something to do with that robbery, the which I frankly do not know if he had anything to do with. The torture was so bad that he either tried to kill himself, which is what is like claimed, or he he either got thrown out the window or he threw himself out the window. And there was kind of a thing going around of defenestrating anarchists
and police stations. There's a play called The Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Yeah. I have acted in their play in high school. Yeah, use what play to do? We were like that one.
They were like, okay, it's real funny. I watched the BBC production of it one time. It's good.
It's a good play at Dario Foe.
Right, yeah, that sounds right.
Yeah, damn, that's a throwback that had not been expecting. Yeah.
Yeah, he survives getting thrown out the window or throwing himself out the window. Part of his crime that he was accused of was associating with evildoers, but they had gotten a confreshion out of him, right, isn't that real?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, great, good that the state gets to decide these things. Yeah, totally hate So wonderful, aren't they. Yeah.
Eventually, in nineteen fifty two, the confession and the case were thrown out because it was so obviously induced by torture. He was still in probation from that shit before though, and not allowed to leave the area. Then in nineteen fifty five, as soon as he was free, he got himself over to Spain, and every time he went back to Spain, he went back to his hometown and made sure to like say hi to everyone and be nice to the old people and shit, even though he's like
literally public enemy number one in Spain. Yeah, it wasn't a social call. His main thing was trying to form the CNT again. And the Anarchosinicalist Union that controlled most Catalonia, even though actually Sabote was like increasingly I keep hinting that that the CNT kind of doesn't like him anymore, but he likes the CNT. They disagreed with his reckless solve all problems with guns and bombs attitude, or they
were cowards. It depends on who you ask. I actually don't have an opinion one way or the other.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's hard to find it in my heart to blame people who are living under a dictatorship that frequently murdered their friends for yeah, you know, yeah, their choices that they made totally.
And so the actual tag groups he was forming weren't CNT. They were in arcosyndicalist groups, but he was also trying to recreate the CNT. Also, he wanted to keep them separate, but he wanted to do both, and this time he was mostly there to do propaganda. He hijacked a taxi to distribute a four page pamphlet called El Combate on the thirtieth of April go Ahead, I.
Think that was the name of anoder anarchist newspaper.
Okay cool. On the thirtieth of April nineteen fifty five, hoping to spark some Mayda shit, you know for may first yea. And the way he did this he brought with him from France. He made his own leaflet mortar.
Yeah, in an age before podcasts, our lives could have been so different.
He made a fucking diy mortar. But that shoots paper into the air and then the leaflets fall down onto the street. And so when Franco visit Barcelona, he fired it out of the sun roof of a taxi.
Even better.
Yes, he also started soapboxing, the kinds of speeches you can't give in fascist Spain. The way he did it here's podcasting hero Sabote. He pre recorded them and played them off of tapes in crowded places full of workers.
Yeah. The first podcast, yeah, yeah, amazing, that's great. There. He just just like, would they just start up from nowhere?
Yeah? And then he and his friends they were also robbing banks right at one point in his friend cool podcasts. Yeah, yeah, that's how do you think we pay for these? I actually.
Isn't. The Ragan coin guy ain't given a shit, want to be honest with you, Yeah, we're trying to go clean. Yeah, that's why we wear Nixon masks when we rub the banks.
And well we're podcast. So at one point, he and his friends rob a bank and get away when a taxi like they always do, and they tip the driver like eight thousand dollars or something, and then also immediately say every time they do this, they say, go straight to the police and tell them everything so that they don't hold you as an accessory. Yeah, well to considerate guys, I know, which is how you become a Robin Hood and not a random crime guy.
Yeah.
Another time they rob, they rob this bank expertly, like a cop pulls a gun and they're like, no, no, not today, and they just disarm him because they're like not trying to like they actually like mostly try not to kill people, including like tools of the fascist state,
unless they specifically want to assassinate specific people. So they disarm the cop and then they place a fake bomb near the entrance and they're like you'd better run and take cover because of this bomb, and everyone runs and take cover, and then it like the bomb never goes off, and finally when the bomb police or whatever show up, it's just full of sand and a note that says, I'm not as bloodthirsty as the press makes me out to be.
Basically amazing.
Yeah, now you all just have PTSD.
Yeah, forever traumatized, but you're not dead. Yeah.
So he's famous again. He's public enemy number one, and the fascists are being fascists and they round up everyone who's suspected of knowing him. So this time he wants to get back to France. He's just pulled off this crazy robbery. They've gotten a million pasettas, which actually seemed to roughly equal about a dollar in twenty twenty three, but with a wide range of possible failure. When I asked a website how much is this worth? And whatever?
They got a million fucking dollars And it's it's our guy named Guy, and then it's another bank robber guy that he doesn't trust. And then the other third person who's coming with them across the border as a woman who he does trust. And the book uses the name Maria for her because the book was written in nineteen seventy four and she was still alive and so is Franco. So she was like, yeah, Maria, my name's totally Maria.
Yeah, that is my only name.
Yeah, And this time they take a route that they haven't used in more than a decade. They I think it's like way west from where they usually cross, and they get lost, and so they recruit an old charcoal burner to help them find the way. I had to look at it bot anymore. Yeah, I had to look it up. It means you make charcoal.
Yeah. I think I have actually seen people doing that in some of my work travels.
That's cool. The charcoal burner was a trade unionist who had been arrested in torture by the fascists, and he wanted nothing to do with any of it. But when he was called upon, he helped them out and like sent his kid to direct them back onto the path. They left an envelope with a fuck ton of money in his house. Before they left, another woman fed them her husband was in prison three years already because he'd
gone to a socialist meeting. And everywhere they stopped, they paid people like ten times what the food they ate was worth. Like one of them was like, here's for your daughter's raincoat, and they gave like, you know, ten times as much money as raincoat costs. But then the bank robber guy. He stole the money and left while they're still longs.
Oh what absolute piece of shit.
Fortunately you kind of can't get away with this such good.
This is what happens when you create, like you leave a positive vibe when you go through places, right, you create sorlidarity, and it makes it a lot higher for people to fuck with you.
Yeah, totally, just like some ad thing. For example, all of the products and services that come after this could be yours for free. All you gotta do is this one trick. Create a society based on solidarity and mutual aid. Yeah, or crime that's another Yeah, not a society based on crime, but yeah, or you know, do things the standard way like I'm clearly doing and I'm a hypocrite for telling you otherwise.
Yeah, Yeah, which is start a podcast and get Ronald Reagan bunce you had.
Yeah, the ghost of Ronald Reagan. Yeah, or maybe he's lich what's so dead? His philactory is these coins. If you buy the coins, you have a little piece of his soul.
Okay? Is that like a whole crux? Yeah? Yeah, less turfy option yeah and older. It's what is where the guys that woman stole from she plagiarized. Okay, yeah, shocked shocked to hear that such a morally upstanding person I know, jk Rowning, I know who.
Is totally not litagious. Anyway, here's some ads and we're back. So the bank robber guy had just stolen the money and run off, and Sabat and Maria tracked him down. They were like, he's just gonna go to the nearest town and buy him fucking alcohol. So they went to the nearest down they found him walking out of the alcohol store common straight edge. W Yeah, yeah totally, And he was like, oh, I totally wasn't trying to ditch you.
I had to run because some cops came by. And they then spend like three days in a slow motion standoff where they know that this bank. They're moving through
the mountains pretending to be friends. The other guy has his hand on his gun under his coat the entire time, and so they have to like watch him, and Sabata is just like not sleeping right right, and neither's the other guy, and they're just like and geez, and so they're just like slowly walking through the mountains waiting for a chance to sick someone to get the drop on
someone else. Yeah, And finally at one point he like takes a drink with both hands on the cup, you know, yeah, yeah, and Maria uh and Sabate basically like, Sabate pulls a gun and Maria disarms him and is like and Maria's like found where all of his knives are by like carefully watching him the whole time. So disarms him, not just of the gun, but all of the knives and stuff. And they take the money back, and since this is Sabate,
he doesn't kill him. He gives him a speech about anarchy and the need to be selfless in the cause of revolution, and then says, we will take you to France because he's wanted in Spain and he'll kill him.
Yeah.
So they take him to France, give him some money, and never see him again.
Yeah, morally upstanding gun.
Yeah, but there's a problem. It's the similar problem that he keeps running into when he goes to France. The world is moving towards accepting a fascist Spain with a dictator who won power Viakup. France is starting to cooperate with Franco more and more. An arrested comrade in Spain is tortured and he leads French, which leads French cops to a Sabate stash of guns in France, and Sabate is now wanted in France too, but he won't go on the run in France. That's like not his vibe.
So he turns himself in and his defense in court is basically like, well, yeah, those are those are my guns. Those are for shooting fascists in Spain, yea. And the court is like, those are indeed mitigating circumstances. We're going to reduce your sentence. However, this is not your first time, so we're also going to up it. So he gets eight months. Oh wow, yeah, which I could totally see them being like, well it's good, but it's illegal, so
I don't know, you know, split the difference. Yeah, and they tell him that he's trapped into Jean for another fucking five years. Scraping James's skin off of the pavement from the future.
Yeah, yeah, it's a wait punishment. I know, it's very come up with him. Yeah, French'll be at that.
Yeah, and that's why someone pushed you while you're riding your bike. You were the first James Stout who rode through the streets. So yeah, when Sabote got out of prison, he started working as an HVAC repairmanka and building up contact and even more resistance fighters had died while he was in prison. One of his old friends, an Italian named Face, went down in a hail of gunfire as he tried to cross the border into Spain and the resistance communities in exile, the ones in France were just
like not interested his brand of resistance anymore. But he he can't quit, like he he's like constitutionally incapable of quitting and like morally incapable of quitting. He has friends rotting in prison. One of his friends, I think it was Rosette, wrote him and was like living like a lord over there in France while I rot in prisons. Fuck you know, because he's like living this nightmare of
everyone dying around like whatever. Yeah, it constantly on their ready, And he has friends and brothers, two of them at least rotting in the ground. So he crosses over into Spain a final time in December nineteen fifty nine, but the French authorities had tipped off the fascists and so he and his companions four other anarchists with him. They're
met with gunfire. They take refuge in a farmhouse which was soon laid siege by the fascists, and the fighting lasted all day and into the night, and during the night the anarchists tried to escape.
They like.
Three of them like pushed a cow to be like O cow go and then like try to run away while the people were like shooting the poor cow. They didn't succeed. They get gunned down. One of them hides and is later found executed. Sabate he has three bullet holes in him. I think his like leg, his butt, and then I can't remember where else, maybe his arm
or something. And he decides to crawl away. And while he's crawling away in the dark, he runs across someone else who's crawling and the other crawler is like, don't shoot, I'm the lieutenant, and it's the lieutenant is trying to run away too, So Sabat shoots and kills the guy. Yeah, and then keeps crawling, and every time he keeps running across police lines, he's like, don't shoot, I'm the lieutenant. Amazing, and he escapes, uh kind of yeah, Okay, he's the
only one who gets out. He dropped Pepper on his tracks to confuse the scent dogs. I think he's learned his lesson from getting all last time dogs.
Yeah.
Yeah, like his brother before him. He swam across a river despite bullet holes. He reached a train station, pointed a gun at the conductor, the gun talked to conductor, gave him a sandwich and let him ride sandwiches, and then slowed down before the next station so that he could jump off like ahead of time without getting caught. And then he hitched a ride into town. Cops found
him feverish. He would have died of gangrene at this point no matter what, and he shot one before he was gunned down at eight thirty am on the fifth of January nineteen sixty. Most likely but unconfirmable. His last words were the last words of so many others, Viva la anarchy, long live anarchy. And the reason we think this is that the press kept reporting that his last words were Viva la morte long lived death, which is a fascist slogan.
Yeah, it's milanissing for the Spanish legion.
Yeah, there's no way he would have said that. That was part of the press talking trash on him. So if he said viva la anything before he died, which he may or may not have, it was viva la anarchy.
And I want to quote, I want to end with a quote from Alfredo Banano, who's an anarchist insurrectionist author, from the introduction to the book Sabat that most of but not all, of the history that I'm drawing from was pulled, and the quote is it is necessary to understand that we cannot wait for others, not even for other comrades, to give us the sign to act. The
final indication this must come from us. Each of us, taken individually, must find his or her own commons and constitute small affinity groups, which are the essential element for giving life to the organization of attack that we need. Actions will come easily as a natural consequence of the
decision to act together against the common enemy. Grand words, declarations to go down in history, the great organizations of the glorious past, and vast programs for the future are all useless if the will of the individual comrade is lacking. And in this perspective, Sabate was never alone. His struggle continues today. End quote.
It's pretty great, Yeah, yeah, what a what a cool guy. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty sad that he died in nineteen sixty when like anti Francoism became more and more powerful. Yeah, in those following years, right, more student protests, more the broader based movement against Francoism and against Soviet communism like throughout Europe in that time.
Yeah, or Arrianism in general.
Yeah, people thought authoritad is bad maybe, yeah, which it is.
It's bad. You live in a fascist country, like a literal Hiham Franco. I call myself fascist.
Yeah. Yeah, I've incorporated the fascias dual symbology because I think it's good.
Actually, yeah, but yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's that's Sabote, that's Elkko. I uh, what do you g?
I enjoyed that, Yeah, I like.
I got a lot out of reading it. I like, you know, because I barely knew about him, right, because he he wasn't presented as like one of the great thinkers. There's no like specific movement that you know. It wasn't a rudy he wasn't you know whatever. It wasn't all these people, but he was this person who did so much.
For so long.
I mean partly because he has seen so much, right you know, right, Yeah, I just I'm imagining him and those last days, Like he probably knew that wasn't going to work. He probably decided ten years earlier, he's just going to do this until they shoot.
Him, right. Yeah. All of these people knew that they wouldn't die at home with their families, right, Yeah, they still kept doing it. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice sometimes to like there are of course a great anichi thinkers. We talk about them not, but they're also great anarchist doers and like, yeah, maybe we don't talk about them enough. Yeah, especially when they were like incredibly selfless and like lived
by the morality that they preached. And yeah, like Spain seems to have been a bit of a hot spot for those people. Yeah, yeah, I really love his consistent morality. He's like, this is what I believe the world should be based on, and this is what I'm going to do. I can't let these bad things happen, but I will not be bloodthirsty. I will not use this.
I mean, he was like walking around with millions of dollars constantly, right, and he wasn't like doing anything with that money. Besides, like giving it to the families of dead you know, dead comrades.
Yeah, I think it's Yeah, it's all very admirable. Yeah, but it creates a movement that like if you just normalize that shit, right, Like if you just normalize not acting as if you're the only person, you know, the sort of like low key solutism that capitalism encourages. Yeah, like and instead like acting as if you're a member of society. What was you all care for one another? Yeah, then like it's very easy to do, Like I see people do it, even like I rememberriting a scripture series
about this border shit. But like it really struck me the other day that two people who were being detained by border patrol in the fucking in between the two border walls that we have that covered in dust and like you know, sleeping out of a top well, like, hey man, there's a camp where things are much worse, and then not allowing aid workers to go there. Could you help us by giving us as many bottles of water as you can so we can carry them up
there for other people. Like it's very Yeah, it's cool when people, you know, I'm always inspired little things like that where I see people like not acting as if they're the only human beings on the planet, and like it's nice to be reminded that that's an option.
No, And and even though this is like a story about action, right, m it's a story about mutual aid, and it's a story about trying to create a society, I'm mutual based on mutual aid.
You know.
Yeah, and like and like go ahead, go ahead, no.
No, I think glasses from reading off his grip, there's a thing like where de Ruti looks as so that like another world is possible and it grows in our hearts every minute, right yea, where like I think what he's trying to say is that like it's possible because we're doing it, like rather than being like anarchism is a thing that we must struggle towards and like a long off distant it'll like, you know, which is the way kind of authoritarian comodies have justified doing authoritarian ship
for so long. They anarchism is a thing we do every day in all our interactions, and yeah, it's a the world that we build ourselves with every every time we interact with another person.
Yeah, now that I like that, maybe that's a good good note to end on what do you want to plug maybe especially the kind of like border stuff like what if what if people who say live near the US border want to or or oh yeah, like how can people be useful about this like crisis that's happening right now where non dispersed champaign has been promoted at the southern border.
Yeah, I think things you can do If you have money, then you can give to groups like Altlado to Border Kindness who group out of San Diego, Armadillos, the Eagles of the Desert. Let's let's you can give to No Master and Worthy in Arizona. Those are people who are at there every weekend dropping water in the desert so that people don't die trying to come here, which is a good thing, and they're doing it because they want
to help. If you have time, you can of course go out and drop water a place in the desert, joining one of those groups. If you're a citizen, that's perfectly legal and don't know they want to tell you it's not and you can. This is one of the things where you probably could make a difference by calling whichever person wearing a suit is supposed to represent you, Like I understand that they don't and for the most part,
they don't care. But there was one person who came from a California state censor's office who was able to secure a mutilad group's access to where these people were camping, which makes a difference between people, I'm not exaggerating, between people loving and dying, right, And so they're calling those people and being like, why the fuck are you not that's one California state senator right in the biggest state in the country. Yeah, and no one else did shit.
He was at Steve Padia if people want to know who that was, someone from his office. But this is probably a thing that you can call people make a difference on, and you can show up. Like every single time that's happened, right, this happened in twenty eighteen with the quote unquote caravan that came at the time of
the midterms. The only people who show up to help are people just like you, Like, don't think that what you have is too small or too insignificant to make a difference, because like showing up with a bottle of water and a smile can change someone to day when the state is treating them like they're not a human being.
Acknowledging their common humanity is really important. So if you have it within your means physically and financially to show up, show up otherwise, you know, giving your money and giving your time, and then like these people who were in the desert last week will hopefully be in your communities one day. Like refugees aren't just people who stop existing after they leave the border. They need your help. And
when they come to your community, show them that they're welcome. Yeah, and then if people don't want to make them welcome, then tell those people that their bigotry is not welcome. Hell yeah, yeah, you know in any way that you see fit. Yeah, yeah, that's what I want to plug is doing all that shit.
Hell yeah, well that makes my plug film selfish, which is that I'm kickstarting a tabletop role playing game.
No, it's good, it's good. It's good. We should we should remember that, like joy is important. Yeah, we continue in our struggles against the system which rips joy from us.
And collaborative storytelling with your friends and like, I don't know, I I yeah, I get a lot out of it. And so I'm currently kick starting a game, well currently as of this, you know, June twenty twenty three. If it's after that, you can probably just buy the game. It's called The Number City. It's been published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which is an anarchist publishing collective that I'm part of, and I'm real proud of it.
I've been working on this game for like ten years in different forms, and you can do that, Sophie, you got anything you want to plug? Hot Dog book? Hot Dog book is out, Yeah.
Braw Dog by Jamie loftis Yeah, I know, but.
I pre ordered it to my house that I live at. But I don't spend a lot of my time at the house that I live at, so I don't have it yet.
I'm going to go to an independent BOOKSTOREM.
Can borrow my copy.
Okay, that's good. Is your copy signed, Sophie?
No, but I but when I see her in a week, she'll sign it.
But no, No, I have a copy.
But I've seen I've read before. It was in print because friendship.
Because we are discussing friend of the pod, Jamie Loftus's book raw Dog, which is a history of hot dogs, that is going to be really good. Yeah, way more entertaining. I was like, no part of me that doubts that this wid incredibly entertaining and informa of book.
Yeah, can I do my horrible capitalism line that?
Okay, I'm supposed to please Sophie. Yeah.
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