A Geek History of Time - Episode 334 - The Antifa Is Coming From Inside the House Damian Reads an Army Pamphlet from March 1945 Part III

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

see people when they click on this they'll see the title so they'll be like poor ed what is that even fucking mean however because it's england that's largely ignored and unstudied. I really wish for the sake of my sense of moral righteousness that I could get away with saying no. He had a goddamn ancestral home and a noble title until Germany became a republic. You know, none of this highfalutin, you know, critical role stuff. So they chewed through my favorite shit.

No, I'm not helping them. I'm going to say that you're getting into another kind of, you know, Mediterranean oer, psyche archetype kind of thing. Makes sense. Also, trade wins are a thing. Ha ha, just serious.

Like, no, he really has a mat on it. You know, we'll go upon a tangent. As we keep doing. Like, yeah, this is how we fill time. This is a Geek History of Time. We're going to be a geek history of time. Where we connect in our region. to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher at the middle school level

here in Northern California. And in my most challenging class of the day, I have another anecdote to share with everybody. I wound up teaching a block period for two days because of testing going on in other classes. And this group came into my room and, you know, the individual responsible for giving me the most gray hair this year was just he was he considered it the height of unfairness that they were actually going to have to do work in my room and that they were not allowed to get up out of their seats and move someplace else it was it was individual work I had them doing and they had to be at their seats and this was just absolutely tyranny to him. and he he tried to throw in my face well yeah but your other class yesterday got to do it and i said well okay um that's not the plan for today and they're not you all and this kid looked me right in the face this is this is the child again child responsible for half of my gray hair looked me right in the eye and said, well, yeah, but that class is terrible.

I just looked right at him and I said, I want you to think real hard about the number of times that you all have reduced me to red-faced shouting over the course of the year. And then I want you to look me in the eye and tell me again how bad another class. Lass is. Long pause. Well, yeah, but that's not my fault. To which half of his peers started laughing. Like, okay, yeah, they all know it too.

Like, okay, cool. So, yeah, that's how close we are to the end of the school year where I am. How are you doing? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history teacher up here in Northern California. And I This will tell you how close we are to the end I have taken to hiding

various things around campus So you remember the gnomes that I bought A while back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took them to school And hid them all over the place Yeah, and I watch kids As they notice them

And there's no rules, there's no, you know, no nothing Like, please don't steal me or anything like that But it is interesting to see which kids are like, yeah, these are everywhere And then, like, he goes and steals one and puts it in his pocket because he's with his friend. He's showing off. Like, look at me.

I've got a gnome, you know? But what I do next is, after they turn the corner, I go put another gnome up there. So. And I travel all over the campus on my prep just so I can hide gnomes in odd places. Well, I ran out of gnomes. Oh, shit. But it did comedy. a week or so ago and all the money that I got from that I put into buying more things so I've got

capybara's nice highland cows sheep oh nice other kinds of gnomes and on and on and so I just yeah so that's awesome it's yeah so that's where we are um yeah yeah it's it's it's a of I don't like to date these shows, obviously, but we end up doing the teachers and the seasons of our lives. But, yeah, it's, it is gnome-hiden season. I'll just put it down. Yeah, for sure. So let's see.

When last we talked, I was talking to you about, I was annotating an American Department of War document called Fascism, with an exclamation point from March of 1945 that was used to, teach new recruits in Basic. Right. And we got through, and they essentially, in their discussion, they gave out a laundry list of dipshit fuckwads who, now I'm being biased, but dipshit fuckwads who collaborated with the fascists. Yes. And you remember, the war is still going on.

It's March of 45. Yeah. Okay. So, the list that they gave was Quisling, Laval, Musserts, or Musserre, DeGrelles, or DeGrelle, and Mosley, and the United States also has native fascists. And I finished with DeGrel, which was long and storied. Yeah, he had quite the career as a traitor to his people. it was really quite remarkable not just to his people to humanity um yes you know he really he really i i cannot emphasize enough that how much at least he doubled down he never like was like you know

it wasn't me um he was like we just weren't wrong like he he was platforming white supremacists and bigots and and and i mean which that's fine like it was a war between bigots but um he he was platforming like hyper white supremacy neo-Nazi shit his entire fucking life and ended up living in Franco's Spain until the end and then of course he made friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen whose daughter has just been banned from running for office in France yes for the next like five years and again I cannot emphasize this enough um this is in March of 1945 I mean we're literally two months away from VE Day. Yeah.

Not that we knew it at that time. That's the thing. It's like we always look back on history and this is a thing that anybody does, looks back on history assuming the knowledge they have is the knowledge we have. Yeah. It's like, no, half the countries that existed back then or half the countries that exist now existed back then. The other half didn't.

Like there's a lot of shit we didn't know, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a whole string of creation and obliteration of nations that happened over the course of the Cold War. Yeah, you know, it's not even just compare that map, compare this map. No, there's a whole bunch of maps in between. Yep.

And that's just to talk about the countries that exist, never mind the shit that we didn't know about, we weren't sure of. You know, it's, yeah, it's amazing. um how how how how little we knew um you know just to give you an idea um this comes out this pat this uh pamphlet comes out march april may June July okay four months before Trinity four months before we exploded an atomic bomb wow yeah so like the amount of shit that people didn't know the fact that it was going to all be over by August nobody knew so and in fact the prevailing wisdom at the time was we know that Europe is shutting down eventually soon but we don't know when um but also the the American like Department of War has ordered like a million body

bags because they think that they're going to have to invade Japan yeah and the war will at least go till 47 over there. So the unsureness, it makes sense. Like this is not a, well, we printed them and we might as well use them. This was, there's an ongoing thing and we want the boys to know why we fight to borrow from Frank Capra. Yeah. So one of the people mentioned was a guy named Mosley.

Yes. Now, he's the British version of DeGrelle. Oswald Arnold Mosley, who was the sister. Sixth baronet founded a six baronet he founded the British Union of fascists in 1932 and he was baronet Mosley right? Yes the sixth baronet six baronet Mosley yes and he was the leader of this this buff the whole time he was one of the youngest members of parliament switched parties multiple times like Churchill but in reverse after Mosley's first wife died he married his mistress in a Secret Ceremony in Berlin.

How lovely for them. You want to guess who's house? Hitler's. No. Gehring? Gerbils. Gerbils. You're going to be my next.

That was going to be my next guest, yeah. But Hitler was a guest of honor. He spent a lot of his own money of his barony or baronage, baronity. Peerage. Sure. Yeah. Spent a lot of his own money establishing the BUF. in 1931

Mosley formed the new party it was called the new party and as a wrestling fan I got to tell you anytime the word new is a part of a team name it ain't gonna go good the only time that didn't that it was different was the new day

because they've been amazing but prior to that like the new rockers no the new Midnight Express no the new fantastic no it just yeah okay was there was there was there ever a team this this is a is a distinction or um and it may be one without a difference

but i want to find out um so the the team that has actually worked is the new day was there a team that existed before them just called the day no okay so see so it's still yeah yeah they're not retreading anything it's right it's if news being used as a retread it's gonna suck yeah no if it's the new new day it ain't gonna work gonna it's really gonna be bad yeah there's some question right now as to whether or not this version of the new day is going to work because there was an injury and the guys kind of retired for the rest of his life and and these yeah it's it's it's really interesting what's happening with the new day right now um they're trying bless their pepick and hearts they are really trying and we will see we will see uh i'm hopeful because they're both very talented

performers but i have my doubts given what their gimmick is and what what our time is right now um just mopey um okay but mopee could have worked a while back but i don't know yeah we'll see we'll see but anyway uh so he establishes the new party um because he was dissatisfied with the labor and the liberal parties which is fair but the new party was roundly defeated in that year's elections in 31 so then he then mostly goes ahead and forms the BUF right so that's where the BUF comes from okay so here's a question because because okay so he forms the new party in 31 yes when number one when was the wedding where um his wedding I want to say his wedding was prior to 31 I think it was in 30 okay so I could be was the platform of the new

Mm-hmm. Recognizably fascist. Um, yeah. Okay. Like, I mean, there were, there were, there were fascist overtones to it. It was more than just the conservative party. It was a much more populist effort. Oh, yeah.

Well, yeah, because that never, that never goes wrong. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah, because, because the, the first thing that occurred to me was like, so he tries the new party. I apologize. He actually didn't marry. until 19 he didn't marry his mistress until 1936 his first wife died in 33 okay so after he

established the BUF okay um which explains why he was so buddy buddy with gerbils and exactly hitler okay but because because what it sounded to me like was he tried the new party and it went over like new coke speaking of speaking of well done and thank you and And then, you know, he was like, well, okay, these guys in the brown shirts seem to be having success. Maybe I'll just adopt their ideology. Right. And like I guess I was trying to, I was trying to find out whether his dedication to the ideology predated him deciding that he was going to form the BUF or if the BUF came, basically the BUF was the dissolution of the new. party okay and the new party i mean it basically um it it splinters off from the labor party at that

time um and there were but you remember the nazis were a working man's party like that's how they were advertised well yeah yeah and they had plenty of workers on their side so you know so this kind of okay follows the same um there was something called the mosley memorandum um and basically there's a huge fucking depression on and he's like we need need to fight this depression um and that meant total control uh over um over over over the party in his hands because only he he and he alone could fix this right yeah that should sound familiar that should sound familiar yeah um and and what i find interesting again is it's a working man's party with, you know, a core base of, you know, hardened believers

who are all, you know, chasing after a leader following blindly, a leader who is decidedly not. They're not following blindly. This is part of why it dissolves. And that's why he then, like, then he's like, okay, fine, let's go full fascist and then we'll get some true believers. Okay, well, I was talking about the buffs, not the...

Oh, okay. I was talking about the British Union, a fascist. Yeah. Because the new party, the new party was a splinter off from the labor party and said, what we really need is high tariffs. That's going to help us. Like, I mean, could you imagine somebody being so stupid? Like, that would be, oh, my God. Right.

So, like, hey, that smooth holly thing, we like that. Let's fucking do that. Imagine somebody not learning from history. Yeah, yeah, imagine, and what gets me about that is, it's such short-term history. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was two years later. It's not even, like, wait, this did not go well when the Yanks tried it. Why do you think it's going to work better for us?

Right. Like, in the immediate aftermath of it, it's not even like everybody who remembers when this happened has died. No, it was like the next year. It was, yeah. Well, the Yanks didn't do it right, you see. We still need. They were right to try, but we can do it better. So when the new party dissolves, he's like, we need to, and it's called the union of

fascists, which tells you something. There are other fascist parties doing their thing, including the Scottish Democratic Fascist Party. And so it's this coalition of fascists in England. And it sounds like in the United Kingdom since we're bringing Scotland into it. Yes, yes. You're right. Yeah, yeah.

In the UK. So here are their main platforms. Like basically if you're able to like just boil it down to a few words. Protectionism, imperialism, nationalism, authoritarianism, and anti-communism. Okay. Like I can't imagine a party running on that and winning. but like it's just

well you know for for the UK at the time I can see the appeal yeah

of you know like just like the pamphlet said you know people telling you what you want to hear that you know for for the British Empire

right I mean obviously you're going to get people support there you know yeah you know the the the imperialism is is going to drive you know probably 15 20% of your traffic just by itself right sure sure or at least like steal from the conservative party you know yeah no you're gonna you're gonna pick up votes from them and and especially when you combine that with authoritarianism then yeah that's gonna pull conservatives yeah um and then the anti-communism thing is you know that's boilerplate that's british policy that's that's That's, that's, well, that's, that's boilerplate Western politics.

Like, yeah, I mean, there's a reason that, like, animal farm didn't get, uh, published until it did. And then there's a reason that 1984 got published when it did. Well, it did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they tried to have a really big rally at the Olympia in 1934, which is where a lot of wrestling used to take place. Um, but because the British only seemed to like violence at football games and in the

imperial margins of their empire, the violence at his rally lost a lot of support for the BUF. We don't do that. That's just not cricket. We don't do that here. Yeah. But that, of course, isn't going to stop him. So undeterred, Mr. Mosley continues upping his anti-Semitism because that's a way to rally people. And he says in April of 1835, quote,

For the first time, I openly and publicly challenged the Jewish interests of this country. commanding commerce, commanding the press, commanding the cinema, dominating the city of London, killing industry with their sweatshops. These great interests are not intimidating and will not intimidate the fascist movement of the modern age. Okay. This is somebody who is hypernationalist. Uh-huh. who who has apparently completely forgotten the point at which and I don't remember which of our episodes we brought this up in the point at which a monarch of England um uh drove out uh like like made illegal Jewish people

back in the 12 or 1300s I think that was like King um Richard after his coronation uh yeah uh yeah it was It was either, and now I remember the conversation we had in the episode. It was either Richard or Henry. Yeah. And yeah. And the massacre of Jews that either preceded or followed that. And I'm trying to remember. Like, wait a minute.

Hold on. And I also, I also love, love in this, you know, scholarly kind of, oh, yeah, that's, that's just perfect right there kind of way. not it's abhorrent obviously But his His throwing The City of London In as a as a You know it's all it's all lost to us real English people right?

Right. You know the same way The same way that people want to rag on You know people on the right in this country now want to try to characterize Los Angeles And New York and really any major city as these, you know, cesspools that are all, you know, overrun with illegal immigrants and what have you. Democratic sanctuary cities. Yeah. It's like, that's not.

That's not actually what it's like to live in those parts of the country. Yeah. Like, yeah, we have our issues, but dude. Yeah. And so he's just, you know, flinging London under the bus there. Yeah. And I think I take that as a. two-pronged thing

that London is the you know it's the capital city of the country obviously but it's also a way for him to draw in his desired base

from you know the working class in other parts of the country well you know And ECHO said, Umberto ECHO said later, like, looking at when that is, 60 years later, he said, one of the things fascists do is they draw on a frustrated middle class. Yeah. So either because the working class is catching up to them, which was not happening at this time, or because their ability to advance toward elites was capped off, which was happening at this time. So it also makes sense to go into an urban area. Yeah.

By near urban professionals who are frustrated and appeal to that. yeah yeah so um let's see by the way april 35 that's like one year before edward the eight's abdication and you remember where where eddie and his wife ended up hanging out a good amount was nazi germany yeah so so there's a lot of pro-fascism kind of in the air but like the the violence didn't work so then he turned to anti-Semitism hoping that that would work he was really clear uh they still lost the election they came in fourth in in basically a three-way election um and uh quite a bit um but uh what do you call it um he visits musselini in 36 yeah he goes on a junk get over there and then in october of 36 uh oswald decides to march the

BUF through Cable Street in East London, which is an area with a lot of Jewish residents. London fucking turned out at the east end. Protesters fought against them, but then the police stepped in and tried to protect them. And eventually the protests stopped. They didn't attack the police, but they did attack the BUF. They stopped the BUF and then drove them the fuck out of the east end. So that was cool There's actually a really great plaque

That ends with the phrase they shall not pass Yep And I wonder Battle of Cable Street Yes now that's the Battle of Cable Street is in Let's see We're looking at 36

I believe yeah October of 36 When was the Hobbit written Well that line isn't it That line is fellowship Oh shit, you're right, okay Hold on So when it was fellowship written Yeah

And published Because I had my wonderings And of course Now I have to specify That it's the novel Hmm Mm hmm Here we go

It was in the 50s right Published Yeah publication date 54 Okay well he could have been pulling from that i don't know the there there has been a lot of um there have been a lot of pixels spilled sure um talking about the connection between the two and knowing what we know about john's attitude toward the Nazis it's including his letter to them Yes, yes, his wonderfully phrased letter.

It's not outside the realm of possibility. Could it also have been an L. Frank Baum moment of like just, it was, it was in the soup. Yeah. Okay. Sorry every time you mention L. Frank Baum, I think fancy chickens. I have a moment. But, yeah, it could, it could be that, too. Okay.

Yeah, I, like, I really want to believe that there's a connection, but we don't have enough direct evidence to be sure. No, it's head cannon for me for sure. Yeah, oh, yeah, 100%. So there's that plaque. Now, Mosley gained popularity after some ebb and flow after that, to the point where he held a rally in July of 39 called Britain first And because of course he did Oh boy

And that drew 30,000 attendees And it was the biggest indoor political rally In Britain's history In September of 39 He tried to push for a negotiated peace with the Nazis Now I'd point out that in September of 39 The Nazis invaded Poland And there was a phony war for about a month

of the British going, God, are you fucking, do we really have to, we said we're going to war over Poland, we'd really not, could you not? And then, and he's like, oh, we need a negotiated piece. But then France fell, and then the Battle of Britain commenced. And Mosley ceased to have

any fucking import. About two weeks after Churchill became the prime minister in 1940, Mosley was detained. He was never charged, but then he was also interned under a war regulation. which I you know couldn't have happened to a nicer guy but also hey due process um during war laws are silent that's a problem for me um Churchill doing it is on brand as fuck um and the Churchill

hate train rolls on right it just it's it's okay okay so do do when you go fishing for tuna do you catch some dolphins. Yes. Are dolphins delicious? Yes. I still have a problem with big net fishing. Like, it's the same. Maybe this metaphor breaks down.

I don't know. But the point is, it's definitely a very powerfully visual one. Yeah. Like, okay, I didn't, I never, I never liked the way that the Raiders played football.

Um, in, or I'll put it this way. I, I don't like the Los Angeles Dodgers. I hate them. It's nationalism. It's stupid on my part. Cannot stand them. We'll never stand them. Even though some of my favorite players were traded to them,

doesn't matter. They become dead to me, right? That being said, if the Los Angeles Dodgers start a brawl and they break parts of the Yankee Stadium, I'm not going to complain. You know? Like if the owner of the Colorado Rocky somehow catches a

stray in a fight with the Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies. Cool. I still hate them both, but cool. Like, I'm glad the Dodgers got to hit that day. And now we know who you're rooting against in any given. Oh, there's a, yeah, there's a, there's, there's an absolute list. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, like, the Dodgers are on number one. Number two is the Colorado Rockies. Number three is the St. Louis Cardinals, and number four is the New York Yankees. Okay. And I appreciate, I appreciate very much that you have the Cardinals above the Yankees. Only because, and here's the thing, numbers two and four are ideological. Numbers one and three are because of a Giants fan.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not proud of my nationalism. I just, it is what it is. Yeah, well, you know. Yeah, I appreciate where the Cardinals are ranked only because my father-in-law and brother-in-law are both massive Cardinals fans. Oh, okay. You know, like, yeah, so anyway. Okay, so just so you know, there was an America speech, an American speech called America First in Des Moines, Iowa in 1941.

delivered by Charles Lindbergh and he was talking about how the Jews were the main agitators of the war etc etc and same same stuff that Ford had yeah promulgated uh 20 years previously uh remember the time oh yeah no he did it in 1915 yeah so not even 20 years yeah so during during the war yeah okay yeah like that's why he went over there yeah um so yeah uh by the way, when he gave that speech in Des Moines, Iowa, it was September 11th, 1941. September 11th is a hell of a date. Yeah. You know, that's when Pinochet took over Chile in 71, or 73, rather.

Yeah. Just odd things keep happening that day. Anyway, but we're talking about Mosley, the British fascist. So 30,000 people drawn in in July. 39 in September 39 he's like we need to push for negotiated peace then France falls to the Blitz then and becomes part of the new world order on the continent the Netherlands fall you I'm just like the Nazis sweep through just powered by like munitions and meth um and yeah beat everybody quick yeah yeah and the meth part of course is entirely correct yes but what what as a

as a budding military historian based on what I'm doing with my my masters at this point what's what's interesting about the way that happened is the Germans I think out of desperation because of their circumstances after after the war they were forced into a situation where they could not fight the last war over again which is historically what everybody has done and and so they they basically figured out that speed kills and and you know there's a reason that the pharmaceutical they laced their chocolate with was amphetamines is because no no we need to go fast we need to break shit and and we need to make sure that our guys don't need to sleep so we can keep doing it for 72 hours at a stretch.

To keep people from defending. Yeah. Because that's what stopped them the first time. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Um, but I, I love your phrasing. Yeah.

I really like the way you put that. Yes. So again, Churchill becomes prime minister in 1940 and immediately detains and never charges, uh, Moseley and keeps him under house arrest, um, until 1943. Again, I don't know British law, but this seems really anti-du process to me. It seems Japanese internment, quite honestly, except that this time you interned a fuckhead. It's different in how the targeting happened, because this was clearly political. Could you say that Mosley was a political prisoner?

Yes, you could. It's uncomfortable. Like, this is why if you're on the side of right, you should do things the right way. And at the same time, fascists don't really, like, you're not, you're not going to weep over the suffering of a fascist. Like, should you hit somebody in the head with a baseball bat? No, if somebody brains the, the owner of the Colorado Rockies. See, this is why we shouldn't do that being on.

Like, or Steinbrenner, but he's dead. so you know okay so once the war ended uh he um oh i'm sorry no uh mosley was put on house arrest after 43 prior that he was detained in prison yeah okay um now once the war ended uh mostly you know like many people uh see the error of their ways and reform uh he didn't he blamed it all on the jews he was a holocaust denier um kind of on the front lines of being shed he ridiculed the Nuremberg trials. Yeah, he ridiculed the Nuremberg trials as a farce. He continued to try to get back into politics

with his anti-immigrant forced reparation of, not reparations, forced repatriation of Caribbean immigrants and attempts to stop decolonialization. And at least he was consistent. You could, you know what he was. he would say when he raised his hand, you know. Okay, fair, I suppose.

You still, I mean, good reason to punch him, but. Yeah. And that's why we shouldn't talk that way. Right. You know, and then good reason to preemptively punch him. It's, it's, we all knew what he was going to say, what, you know. Like. But because fascism is concerned with purity, Mosley actually became an influential voice for

organic farming, meeting regularly with a group called the Soil Association. because blood and soil it yeah the the pipeline of purity culture to nazi shit is really short it doesn't matter if it's it's it's very purity or your educational purity or your racial purity anything all of it yeah no it's it's it's a it's a very short very straight downhill massive gauge yes pipeline like yeah like you can't stand up in it

and raise your arms up and feel the other side yeah like it's a big ass fucking pipe and it's and it's tilted enough that it's practically free fall yeah yeah um fuck it people often wonder they're like how is it that like so many crunchy co-op goers co-op people right get get into like white supremacy shit I'm like, oh, oh, let me, let me draw this horseshoe for you. It's the one time horseshoe works. Yeah.

But yeah. Okay. So the other group that was, and I'm going to go back. I'm going to read the document again because I kind of reset it, but I just want to reset it again. Here's what the pamphlet said. In France, which was considered a leading democracy of Europe, the betrayal was spearheaded by a powerful click of native 100% French fascists. Norway had its quizzling, who was as pure-blooded a Norwegian. as LaValle was a pure-blooded Frenchman.

We talked about both of them. The Netherlands, Moussere, or Mousserts, was 100% Dutch. Belgium's de Grells was 100% Belgian, and Britain's Mosley's 100% British. Okay, so that's who I just finished telling you about. The United States also had its native fascists who say that they are 100% American. There were native fascists in the Philippines and Thailand, Siam, in China and Burma and many the countries all waiting to become the willing puppets of the axis not one of these fascists is a foreigner who had to be imported from germany it a japan or italy so that was the paragraph so now i'm

going to tell you about um they mentioned american fascists right uh u.s native fascists is what he said the silver legion right yeah we're getting yeah um so it's probably not william phillips uh who'd served as ambassador to italy right after they invaded Ethiopia until just before america was by Japan. Probably not him. However, um, as under Secretary of State, William Phillips had been among the first of in America to praise fascism as a true democracy. Because words don't mean anything. What? Yeah. Okay. This shit finds purchase. Okay. Like if you have a countertop that is textured like stucco, even if it's made of marble, but it's textured like, like stucco, bacteria will find purchase.

Yes. You need to flatten that shit out. You need to cure it a lot. Otherwise, bacteria will find purchase. Yeah. If you are in a democracy that is an apartheid state, which is what America was at that time, this shit will find purchase because you're a democracy, wink, wink. Yeah.

Okay. So he admired the hell out of Mussolini. This is, again, undersecretary of state, William Phillips, who had been the ambassador to Italy right as they invaded Ethiopia just before we were attacked by Japan. He admired the hell of Mussolini and said that Mussolini was a great human who had done great things for Italians, improving life for all Italians.

Most of the State Department in the 1920s agreed with William Phillips, by the way. But as he was the chief, William Phillips, was the chief, of the OSS in London for the United States starting in 1942. It's very doubtful that the army is throwing any shade at him in 1945. So I don't think it's William Phillips, despite his fanbuying over Il-Duce. Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce. Duce. Duce.

Ducci. More likely, they're mentioning without mentioning the names of German-American Bund, right, who had held the pro-Nazi rally in February of 39, in Madison Square Garden that was a rally against Franklin D. Rosenfeld and his Jew deal. Wow.

That's what they called it. These were really awful people who drew a crowd of over 20,000 at Madison Square Garden. They also claimed that George Washington was the first fascist because of his anti-democratic beliefs. They, at this

rally, they did the Nazi salute. They hiled Hitler. They had swastikas, everything. They also advocated boycotting businesses that did business with Jewish clients and that did business with the Soviet Union. This should sound kind of familiar. Yeah. Hold on back on. When they talk about Washington.

Yes. The first fascist. Yeah. The first fascist. Yes. Because of his anti-democratic statements. Yeah. What were they pointing to?

probably the whiskey rebellion I mean okay well yeah I'm I'm just you know looking back on the fact that he whipped

whipped the shit out of like troops the fact that he insisted that they all get vaccinated like again when you're claiming to be a democracy

right and you're an apartheid state it is easy to find purchase and to twist things again Washington was a slaver like he absolutely was um yeah did he also do cool shit

for America, yes. Yeah. But he doesn't have a stainless steel countertop that is anti-bacterial. Fair. Just doesn't. Yeah. Also, at this booned rally in February of 39 at Madison Square Guardian, they also stood against unions. So to be the, and here's the thing.

You can be anti-union and be pro-worker somehow in this country because words don't really have meanings or I'm exceptional or some shit like that um so it could also be that this part of the pamphlet was calling out the silver league silver legion of America which is what you're talking about silver shirts yeah which was led by William Dudley Pelly um William Dudley Pelly was a journalist and a screenwriter turned anti-Semite claiming in 1931 that Jews were possessed by demons. Okay. The year after this,

it was definitively proven that air is not a substance. Pelly ran for president in 1936 under the banner of the Christian Party, claimed, among other things, that Roosevelt was part of a Jewish plot to control the government. I don't know if you know this, but Pelley didn't win. He was actually one of the few people that was named as a real person in Sinclair Lewis's, it can't happen here.

You might remember Sinclair Lewis. He is the husband of Dorothy Thompson. That's how I will always refer to him. But this group, the silver shirts, they claim to have 15,000 members nationwide in 1934. They wanted, and the way to find their membership is hard because you can't just go by dues because there's so much embezzlement and corruption and fraud within the upper echelons of most of the Nazi groups in America. Well, most of the Nazi groups anywhere. Yeah, but, well, but in Germany, like, there was a clear, you know, like you could, you could track the money that they were stealing from the Jews, like that, thanks to IBM. But you could, but like in America, it was diffuse and a lot of, a lot of grift and a lot of graft was happening.

So they would claim a lot of members, but then they couldn't show the receipts. Yeah. And some people wanted to keep that shit hidden. So it gets all kinds of weird. But they did claim 15,000 members nationwide in 34. Some historians have put the number closer to 8 to 10. But you know what? That's still 8 to 10,000 too many.

Yeah. The silver shirts wanted to reestablish the United States as a Christian Commonwealth. I'll say that again. They wanted to reestablish the United States as a Christian Commonwealth. As in knock it down and start over? See, either option of that phrasing is terrible. Yeah. One is knock it down, started over.

The other one is, let's go back to our roots, which don't exist. Which, which were never, that was never a thing. That was like, like the one, the one time, the only occasion on which I will ever point to Jefferson as like, no, no, this dude had it right. And he had it right. The author, the author of the Declaration of Independence. and and you know that document that was all about unity yeah and love the one word it didn't work for the one the one like oh my god but anyway the author of the Declaration of Independence yeah that guy um his his his his his his one record multiple times explicitly stating

that this we're we're not a Christian nation that there needs to be a wall between church and state yeah like and and the thing is it's not like he's the only one of the founding fathers who said this stuff right you know he's he's the one who said it I think most frequently yeah but John Adams

probably Hamilton somewhere Jimmy Madison James Madison Like Yeah for fuck sake A whole bunch of them Yeah Yeah so yeah they wanted to reestablish

The United States as a Christian Commonwealth Which would then expel From its borders As fascist democracies do Both Jews and any non-whites Here's a quote from them. Just as Mussolini and his black shirts saved Italy and as Hitler and his brown shirts saved Germany. That's that was what the silver shirts were wanting to do. But they did not

win the presidency. They were defeated in 36. I think they came in fourth in a three-way race. The group had actually dropped about two-thirds of its membership by that point. So you're down to like, I don't remember. They claimed 15,000. So they're down to like 5,000. Eventually, they had their rallies interrupted by Jewish-American organized crime, led by David Herman. It's unclear if he disbanded the group because he saw it waning in power, or if because the attacks on Pearl Harbor, or because Pellie was sentenced to a three-year prison term for securities fraud, it's, you know. A little a column A, right, little a cell block D. And again, they're not naming the names of the assholes in America, which I find interesting. But which, which I actually appreciate and find fair, too, because due process.

Yeah, right. You know, you don't set the Department of War against individuals in the United States. That's not okay. Like, you don't do that. Theoretically, the pamphlet also could be talking about Virgil Herbert Effinger, or Effinger. the founder of the Black Legion. He wanted to start... No, wait, wait, no.

Yes. No, the Black Legion was founded by Abadon the Dispoiler in the wake of the failure of the Horus heresy because we are no longer Luna Wolves, we are no longer the sons of Horus. Horace failed, Horace was weak, Horace was a fool, we will paint our armor black and we will never let the imperial lapdogs forget. Anyway, sorry. You're going to really hate coming out standing hard for them in about three sentences

So Virgil Herbert Effinger wanted them to start a fascist revolution and envisioned himself as the dictator at the head of the Black Legion Well, of course. The Black Legion was the Midwest and northern offshoot of the KKK who thought that the KKK was not racist or shitty enough wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait the Ku Klux Klan was not racist enough yeah how I want to know what the argument there is well I didn't say not bigoted enough okay it's not racist enough so not willing to use power to stomp others down got it okay these are

probably the group who killed less enough right these are probably the group who killed Malcolm X's father in 1931 okay because they had been very active in Detroit and Lansing Michigan where Malcolm X's family was living at the time oh all right this makes a lot of sense to me since the chief of police in Detroit was a member of the Black Legion when I say of course it was Michigan Michigan has always been this way. The Black Legion numbered some at its peak, somewhere between 60 to 135,000. And again, this is the problem with secret hate groups.

There's a lot of deniability involved. It's almost as though they can't just stand for their ideals because they know in their heart of heart that they're indulging the shittiest part of themselves. And like many terrorist hate groups, white violence groups, The Black Legion was destroyed by its own violence. They'd murdered roughly 50 people in their time, but it was the murder murder of a man named Charles Poole that did them in. Charles Poole was an organizer for the WPA. Oh.

I always mix up my alphabet legislation. It's the work public administration, works public administration. Yeah, I want to say, yeah. Yeah. 11 men were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. anywhere from life imprisonment down to three to ten years for murdering Charles Poole who was organizing for the federal government

to give people fucking jobs this basically broke the Black Legion but at their height the Black Legion had plotted to poison entire neighborhoods of Jewish immigrants and Americans using germ warfare in the milk now it could well be

because some of them probably knew eugenesis in the 19 teens who were using tuberculosis-laden milk to kill off the unfit in the hospitals. I don't know, but, you know, milk gets delivered to everybody. Oh, yeah, that was a thing. Because the belief in the medical profession at the time was, well, if you've got good genetics, you'll be able to fight that shit off.

but I don't think they were using TB milk for this they were planning to use like rice and shit like that or similar poisons it didn't work they did kill multiple auto labor leaders because it is Michigan they burned farms the Black Legion captured the imagination of many with their pro-fascist spectacle violence aimed at immigrants and laborers

which you'll find a lot of in Michigan and up in the Midwest and in the north, right? The Black Legion had two movies made about them calling out their awfulness, the Legion of Terror in 1936, and the Black Legion in 1937, which absolutely was aimed at calling more attention to the murder of Charles Poole. It starred Humphrey Bogart. Oh, wow. Right.

Now, you might remember Humphrey Bogart was among the original ones called in from H.OAC for being pro-communist. Yeah. his participation in movies like this kind of popped him to the top of the list yeah probably so anyway so those could be any number of the ones that are the uh as the pamphlet said the um the u.s native fascists so what what struck me there was the silver legion like top numbers was 15,000 correct the black legion top number was nearly 10 times that yeah exactly Was that just better communication? Was that more charismatic leadership? What do you? So the Black Legion is much more nativistic and fascism is a foreign influence. So they could have fascist trappings, but if you can wrap it in the sheets of disaffected KKK members, I think that's what's going on there.

I think it's, yeah. okay um that makes you you you might not sign on for uh that's one of them foreign things but you will sign on for oh yeah it should be a white ethno state around here yeah okay so yeah all right fuck now back to the pamph so many shitty people yes unbelievably awful people are no it studies like this make me realize how how often we we were on the nice edge of awful and chose right. Yeah. Sometimes by chance.

Yeah. And if that's the case, then it's not inevitable that you'll always get it right. And it's entirely possible that sometimes you will choose wrong nationally and have to live through terrible, terrible things if you're lucky. Yeah. So, anyway. So back to the pamphlet from the Department of War from 19. 45 in March. Question. Have any groups in America

used fascist tactics and appeals? Most of the people in America like to be good neighbors. But at various times and places in our history, we have had sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression

of civil liberties. I just want to break in here real quick. The fucking army is calling out lynching. Yeah, that jumped out at me. two years ago we finally have a federal ban on lynching yeah yeah anyway we have had our hooded gangs black legions silver shirts and racial and religious bigots all of them in the name of americanism have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which experience has shown can be properly

identified as fascist can we afford to brush them off as mere crackpots we once laughed at hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache. I already talked about those groups, so I'll move on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In January 14, 30 Americans, many of them native-born, were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring with, quote, the Nazi party to accomplish the objectives of said Nazi party in the United States, end quote. These objectives, according to the indictment, included undermining and impairing, quote, the loyalty and morale of the military and naval forces of the United States, end quote.

The case ended in a mistrial caused by the death of the presiding judge. The question of re-indictment is still under consideration. Oh, wow. Yeah, so the indictments that they're talking about of January of 1944. On January 3rd, 1944, a federal grand jury indicted 28 men and two women charged with conspiracy to aid in the establishment of a national socialist government in the United States. See, apparently that shit used to be illegal. Joseph E. McWilliams and 29 others were indicted for the aforementioned crime.

McWilliams led a group called the Christian mobilizers, who were a splinter group from the Christian Front that had been started by Father Cochlin. The trial also named Lawrence Dennis as a defendant. Do you know Lawrence Dennis? The name is familiar, but I don't remember. remember why. All right. Strap in.

Lawrence Dennis passed for white and hit his ethnicity his whole life to the point where his own daughters didn't know. Wow. He was a child evangelist. So that's fucking creepy. Anyhow, he had come to write the coming American fascism in 1936, which is a book that is really hard to read. emotionally, just because it is really badly written.

I know, because I've tried to crack it open three times. Oh, wow, that bad, huh? Yeah, it is, it is. And it could just be that, you know, emotionally, it is too taxing, but also, God, he sucks. Anyway, this book would detail how racism would and had to replace capitalism, because capitalism is not bad enough. Mr. Dennis fancied himself a fascist contrarian preferring intellectuals like Goebbels, Hess Rosenberg and Gehring

rather than simple showman like Hitler so he's a fucking hipster Nazi lover Did he not understand that all of those names he mentioned is like who we preferred were all sucking Hitler's dick like yeah but like they're just you know they're playing 5D chess

Bullshit. And they're the intellectuals. He's just a showman. It would be like being a fan of Ted Cruz right now. And thinking like, you know? Or Marco Rubio. Or. The one that jumps out of me.

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking. Miller. Miller and Musk. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, in 1941, Lawrence Dennis was named America's number one. fascist by Life magazine. He tried to join the army and was rejected. And Dennis was involved in a plot where Sylvester Virichet, or Virach, the German-American poet, would use American taxpayer money to deliver Nazi propaganda from Hitler. Wow. Yeah. The way that they did it is, uh,

Like, well, I'll get into it, actually. Okay. It's really, it's, it's so weird. When I first was researching this plot itself, I was like, this is some of the most boring, mundane shit. No, no matter, no wonder it worked. Like, no one would have thought this, right? So anyway, Vyrrhic is helping Dennis to deliver Nazi propaganda from Hitler using taxpayer money. That plot actually involved Ernest Lundee.

the Ministota Senator and Representative Hamilton Fish from New York and Jacob Thorkelson from Montana. He paid, he being a Verick, paid members of Congress to use the German embassy provided propaganda to deliver them as speeches on the floor of Congress, which means then it gets into the public record that anybody can order. And then their offices would give him their franking privileges to send this propaganda to millions of people throughout the country, mailing

things out at taxpayer expense. So, franking is essentially, like, there's a thing deep, deep in the Constitution, essentially, like, you need to be able to contact your constituents and the federal government's going to flip the bill using taxpayer money, right? And the idea is that that way you can communicate with your constituents as to what's going on. It's a vital part of democracy because we don't want a secret government. Right.

So they're using that to push out Nazi propaganda. That these assholes have delivered on the floor of Congress. Yeah. So not only that, but also Nazi propaganda that they are, that they're delivering through the mail just that too. So there's two things that are happening. The congressional daily record will carry that speech and here's what your senator said. And it's straight from Hitler's lips practically. Right.

And then also you're going to send other literature to. you know should america get involved i think blah blah you know and stuff like that yeah yeah so now he was uh uh this guy was orchestrating this whole plot when this is pre-war no no this is um 1941 42 i want to say um yeah because the the trial starts in 44 Congress critters face charges like because that's that's collaboration well yeah but that would be embarrassing so Lundee actually dies in a airplane crash if I recall correctly um yeah unfortunately other people died as well but

let's see Lundine was he was the one from Minnesota if I recall correctly and he dies in an airplane crash in August of 1940 and when he dies it's a fun little story

his wife is very quick to collect all of his shit that he was flying with because he was flying with a fuck ton of Nazi propaganda to try keep us out of the war and stuff like that and because she's the wife

she's got privileges and stuff like that so anyway so again I'll name the people involved Ernest Lundine Senator of Minnesota Representative Hamilton Fish of New York and Jacob Thorkelson

from Montana Montana and so now back to Dennis he saw himself as a rational and unemotional man so those guys are always well balanced and never hyper right wing I never see somebody who's like

I'm I'm rational and unemotional I never see them on the left and I think it's because on the left the very concept of being on the left is you have to have compassion for your fellow man so people who call themselves rational and emotional they're the ones who are like we're going to have to do the hard

killing here and it's like wait what what yeah home yeah so he was friends with the lindbergs um dennis did now in january 44 the indictments came down and the trial was going to include literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence i want to say it was like 150 000 documents um and it would have linked back to the senator and the representatives the dead senator and the alive representatives and then the presiding judge who was constantly harassed in his own courtroom by the defense attorneys and the antics of the defendants team of lawyers. He died of a heart attack in November of 44. Well, shit.

And so they declared a mistrial, and the 30 jackboot lickers went unprotected in what had previously been called by Time Magazine, the, quote, biggest and noisiest sedition trial in United States history. So just wiped away. again it's November 44 right so we're getting ready for the battle of the bulge we don't want to embarrass ourselves lack of unity November 44 is an election time like there's a lot of yeah for the sake of unity we've we've papered over a lot of really fucked up shit um after uh after the death of um

of uh what you might call it um judge no no no No. Lundeene? No, he's already dead as well. Lawrence Dennis. Yeah. After his death, Time magazine wrote that, quote, no one in Washington doubted that a ludicrously undignified trial had hastened the death of a, oh, no, no, this is after the death of the judge.

I'm sorry. Yeah. I got ahead of myself. After the judge's death, Time wrote that no one in Washington doubted that a ludicrously undignified trial had hastened the death of a scrupulously dignified judge. now after the war was over the government chose not to prosecute again allowing the elected officials to get off scot free i understand that this is a stunning development and like the first time that's ever happened yeah um and thankfully it's never happened since like could you imagine like holly oh could you

getting to go free instead of serving the sentence that he's oh yeah yeah so anyway at the publication of this pamphlet, March of 45, the trial was just getting started. Right? So I'm telling you what happened like months later. Right. After this, yeah. So when the pamphlet was published, they're like,

yeah, we're having a trial about this right fucking now. They're telling privates in the army. Yeah. The news in Australia even was carrying stories of this shit. I found like the Sydney Times talking about this. Wow.

So, back to the pamphlet. Right. Whenever free governments anywhere fail to solve their basic economic and social problems, there is always the danger that a native brand of fascism will arise to exploit the situation and the people. Can we spot it? Question, how can we identify Native American fascists at work? An American fascist seeking power would not proclaim that he is a fascist. Fascism always camouflages its plans and purposes.

Hitler made demagogic appeals to all groups and swore, quote, Neither I nor anybody in the National Socialist Party advocates proceeding by anything but constitutional methods, end quote. Any fascist attempt to gain power in America would not use the exact Hitler pattern. It would work under the guise of super patriotism and super-Americanism. Fascist leaders are neither stupid nor naive. They know that they must hand out a line that sells. Hughie Long is said to have remarked that if fascism came to America, it would be on a program of Americanism. Yeah, no shock there.

So I'm going to repurpose some research that I did on Huey Long for the episodes I did about lizard people and the TV show V. Huey Long, the kingfish, was a left-wing populist governor and senator from Louisiana. Long was, in many ways, a left-wing populist dictator in waiting. He was the political boss in Louisiana and was one of the first to use loudspeakers to get his message across. He also, Long did, made use of radio spots and was fine with punching his opponents in the nose in public. Literally, I don't mean that verbally. Once Governor, Huey Long fired hundreds of people that he considered to be political opponents, if you could imagine. He began to consolidate power at an alarming rate to the point where he got impeached within the first year.

he raised the old governor's mansion to the ground and he made it he had a new one built in its place that resembled the White House and then he used the National Guard of the state to overstep what the mayors wanted and dismissed criticism of bureaucrats who should have been in check who should have been a check on his power so they straight up would say you can't do that he said yeah I'm going to and they wrote strongly worded letters yeah he's his supporters Long supporters, and in the legislature, openly brawled with his detractors during an impeachment vote in the state assembly chambers. His supporters in these brawls used brass knuckles, and his own brother, if you remember, bit a legislator on the neck.

Right. Yeah. Huey Long survived impeachment largely by offering favors enough to state legislators that he would beat the math, as well as going to the bully pulpit to tell the people that it was all a plot by standard. oil. And then he went after those who voted in favor of it by eliminating their relatives from the government. He drained

the swamp. He took issue with what he called the lying press. He made his own newspaper starting in 1930, which was happily distributed by police officers, state troopers, truckers, and highway workers.

He then ran for Senate, the seat which he took in 1932. and during the campaign for Senate, a federal office, his bodyguards abducted and held in captivity one of Huey Long's most vocal critics for four days before the election. Once released, his critic, a man named Irby, read a fake confession that he'd asked Long for protection,

and that's what had happened. Long also had fake votes working in his favor so that his own lieutenant governor wouldn't undo his work. long delayed assuming his Senate seat until his governorship was almost up so he could put somebody else in office when asked why he was okay leaving the Senate seat vacant for almost two years

that he had won in an election Huey long remarked that it's been vacant for quite some time now since his opponent had held the seat for 31 years which is a great line but also way to be glib and get around the facts yeah

now when a governor leaves the state what happens is lieutenant governor takes over right he's the de facto governor so when hughy long went to mississippi he tried to keep his trip to mississippi a secret so that his lieutenant governor a guy named seer c yr wouldn't be able to act on it now seer did find out and declared himself acting governor long then ordered the national guard to surround the capital to prevent seer from entering the capital building where the legislators were long then petition the Supreme Court to kick Sear out of Lieutenant Governor's office since Sear had abandoned his post as lieutenant governor when he tried to take over as governor and he did all of this from Mississippi. Yes

and it worked by the way the Supreme Court said Sear can't be lieutenant governor he abandoned his post Jesus through all of this Huey Long continued to do things that he knew would specifically benefit the poor and this is that weird contradiction.

He's a leftist populist. So he's doing horrible shit to gather power to himself, but then he takes care of it. He's Caesar. Like he's... Yeah. Yeah. And so the forgotten men of Louisiana

was the people he talked about. Huey Long increased paved highways in Louisiana more than seven times as much. They were originally, when he came to office, 331 miles of paved highways. 2,301 miles by the time he was done. he constructed 2,816 miles of gravel roads. By 1936, there were 9,700 miles of new roads,

which doubled Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi River in Louisiana. Like, these are all really important things at a time where airplane travel is still very nascent, and it's certainly not freighting. And given that a lot of your railroad stuff is happening up north,

this is a way to get in on trucking and remember Louisiana is home to like the 10th largest port in America now back then I think it was like number six or seven yeah being New Orleans you want to guess what they called the bridge over the Mississippi

River in Louisiana I don't know the Huey Long Bridge of course now all of this meant because you know it's not you just push a button and suddenly the roves turned paved these are jobs these are jobs in the 1930s yeah this is big and this is using monies gotten from the federal government right because that was part of the wpa that was part of everything so he's getting people jobs he's and that's helpful right and then you've got um

you've got this finished product which is going to enable increased travel increase commerce all of your infrastructure um he increased literacy hughy long increased literacy by over 100,000 people by establishing night schools that he funded and set up. Again, when you are the king of graft, you can use that money for noblesso bleach. Yeah. Hew along eliminated property taxes on the poor's 50% by making it so that the first $2,000 in value was assessment free. Now, this is at a time where like the average house costs way less than that. Yeah.

Now, he also made sure to keep teachers salaries low. Yeah, well. Yeah. Now, once Senator Huey Long pissed off nearly everyone. He decried their lack of effort in his eyes, went off on them. He filibustered a bunch. He got zero legislation passed. Franklin Roosevelt said that Huey Long and Douglas MacArthur were the two most dangerous men of their time.

He also added Father Cochlin to that group. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Roosevelt also seemed to have been the first president to use the IRS to harass anyone because he specifically turned it on Huey Long and his lieutenants. In 1934, he, Huey Long went on the radio. So I'm bouncing a little bit back and forth. But in 1934, Huey Long went on the radio to declare his share-hour wealth plan,

every man of king. clearly he was lining up to be in the running for the next presidency right in 1936 yeah um he had guaranteed minimum income free college tuition veteran benefits months vacation for every worker a 30 hour work week $5,000 for each person they didn't even have to have children um free medical services and so on like yeah you know when people say I voted for a second policies, but I hate him as a person. That would have been me with Huey Long. Yeah.

Because look at all the shit that he's promising. Like if he could deliver on all that, like if I could see the math. Yeah. You know? Well, number one, if you could see the math and you know, the next question I have is yeah, about all of that $5,000 for everybody.

Is there a color bar on that? Didn't see it. to be because again really the poorest 50% were not taxed he increased literacy that's a lot of black literacy that he's okay don't get me wrong he's still gonna be pro-segregation and all that shit yeah but he absolutely was helpful to the black communities at the time all those roads you know like there's a lot um so by 35 it's it's clear that Huey Long was angling for the

presidency and it was a scary enough thing to Roosevelt and his administration administration that they really took notice. But the problem with Huey Long was that he made a lot of people angry back in Louisiana. And angry people in Louisiana can sometimes become armed angry people in Louisiana. And sure enough, in 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Among its members were former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T.C. Wams Walmsley. They would take their guns and seize the courthouse in East Baton Rouge.

Now, Huey Long then told the governor, because remember he's the senator, not the governor anymore, but that's in name only. He told the governor to deploy the National Guard who then used tear gas and fired live rounds. Long also then had banned public gatherings of more than two people, as well as any press that was critical to the present Louisiana government long used state legislation yeah so

this is sounding very chavinista left leaning but intensely authoritarian yeah because you've got to stop those kind of revolutionaries yeah and because being leftist in Louisiana

was the path to power yeah so long used legislation that gave him personally more power to appoint people to positions of power. He we got the state assembly to gerrymander an opponent's district

so that he wouldn't be seated anymore. A guy named Benjamin Pavey. Pavi's son-in-law took issue with this. His name was Carl Weiss. And he was like, this is happening way too fast, way too effectively. So then he took a gun and stood four feet from long and shot him in the back oh okay long's bodyguards returned fire killing weiss with over 60

shots okay do you remember what their their name was their nickname for his bodyguards were no the cossacks lovely hughy long died about a day later because they couldn't stop the internal bleeding uh this was a absolutely a political and probably personal relief to the roosevelt administration, as well as to Democratic Party bosses. Here's a quote. This was an economic advisor to Roosevelt. He said, quote, when he was gone, it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land.

Father Cochlin, Reno, Townsend, at all were, after all, pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon. Yeah. So, yeah. the the parallel you drew with caesar earlier just seems to be even more apropos the only difference is that hughie long's adopted great-nephew yeah doesn't take over the whole fucking country yeah this is true and and there was only one person who shot long as opposed to 2023 was it yeah 23 but 60 were involved yeah 23 landed see that's you know

I'm gonna date this again yeah that whole like 100 men versus one gorilla yeah as as a history guy I'm and a d and d guy I'm like oh the gorilla's gonna win because you can only get waves of 10 men at a time at most yeah yeah it doesn't go well absolutely at most yeah yeah and and um you know I'm trying to remember who it was. It might have been a clip from Reacher or something, but, you know, somebody's, some action hero type is, you know, staring down a group of half a dozen guys. And he's like, you know, yeah, I'm going to,

I'm about to kick the ass of three people. Right. And they're like, what's? There's eight of us. Yeah. Yeah. He says, no, I'm only going to have to break the arms of three of you before the rest of you are going to break and run.

Yeah. You're going to be one of them, and then pointing to him, you're going to be one of them, and you're going to be one of them. You, I don't know. Right. Yeah. The, yeah, I could spend a lot of time talking with you about the 100 men versus a gorilla thing. Yeah. But, you know, there's also something interesting about the compelling charisma of these kind of guys.

Yes. That, like, you know, if. if anybody at any point along the road had just looked Huey long in the face and said fuck you, no you know he had enough people on his payroll that would

they would have beat the shit out of that person well yeah I understand but I'm talking about before he got to the point where he had those people on the payroll oh sure sure you know everybody always sees that as a path to power for themselves yeah so yeah no But, you know, similarly, and then it turns into this thing where he had this aura of intimidation and fear surrounding him. And similarly, Caesar had 60 guys agree.

Oh, yeah, no, we're all going in. We're all, you know, everybody has to stab him at least once, right? You know, because they were all fucking afraid of him. Yeah. You know, and there is something about the glamour, associated with these personalities that like as people who study history

one of the things we should be pointing out to people is you need to stand up to them because failing to only adds to that mystique and makes it harder later on yeah you gotta fight that that's why you give

no you give no purchase yeah to them yeah so but for the son-in-law of a legislator it could have happened here it appears that sinclair lewis actually meant long in his book and it wasn't just lewis who thought so fDR was genuinely worried prior to long's death that if the republicans won in 36 that they would worsen the economic crisis undo everything that he had fixed and then make the country better for business owners and corporations not the people like could you imagine yeah yeah and that would

then that would then leave the door wide open for long so roosevelt was actually thinking longer long game um but he was actually thinking like not only if the revocans win are they going to undo everything that's actually helping people not die from starvation but then it will leave the door open for a left wing populace like long because shits fuck yo Um, that's a direct quote. Um, and then, so, so if Long one in 40, quote, this is from FDR, quote, that would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator, end quote. Hmm. So while Long was to the left of FDR, he shows two things as real possibilities. First, that populism is a dangerous mechanical device by which a person can elevate their. status to dictatorship no matter their ideology right and secondly that liberals fear leftists far more

than they fear fascists yeah but i digress um so back to the packet or the pamphlet um fascists in america may differ slightly from fascists in other countries but there are a number of attitudes and practices that they have in common following are three every person who has one of them is not necessarily a fascist, but he is in a mental state that lends itself to the acceptance of fascist aims. One, pitting religious, racial, and economic groups against each other, against one another in order to break down national unity is a device of the divide and conquer technique used by Hitler to gain power in Germany and in other countries.

With slight variation to suit local conditions, fascists everywhere have used this Hitler method. In many countries, anti-Semitism, hatred of Jews, is a dominant and device of fascism. In the United States, native fascists have often been anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Negro, anti-Labor, anti-foreign born. In South America, the native fascists used the same scapegoats, except that they substitute anti-Protestantism for anti-Catholicism. So, just pointing out, in 1945, the Department of War thought it was important enough to point out that being hella racist and anti-worker and anti-Semitic was a problem

and anti-immigrant was a problem the Department of War liberal bastion that it is communist stronghold in American historically okay interwoven with the master race theory of fascism is a well-planned hate campaign

against minority races religions and other groups to suit their particular needs and names fascist will use any one or a combination of such groups as a convenient scapegoat. Two, fascism cannot tolerate such religious and ethical concepts as the Brotherhood of Man. Fascists deny the need for international cooperation. These ideas contradict the fascist theory of the master race. The Brotherhood of Man implies that all people, regardless of color, race, creed, or nationality have rights.

International cooperation, as expressed in the Dumbart & Oaks proposal, runs counter to the fascist programs of war and world domination. So I'm going to break in here and talk about Dumbart & Oaks for a minute because they're mentioning it to privates in the army. Yeah. Dumbarton Oaks was the conference

which gave birth to the idea of the United Nations. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's an improvement on the League of Nations, obviously, it has teeth. It was officially called the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization or simply the Dumbart & Oaks conference. It went from August of 44 to October of 44,

August 21st to October 7th, so only about two weeks. There were delegations there from the big four, USSR, UK, U.S., and... USSR, UK, US, China? Yes, good job. Really? Yes. I mean, they're the ones fighting, you know, the USSR and China are the ones doing most of the...

the fighting against the fascists. The U.S. and U.K. are like, you know, providing the material, you know. Yeah. So they meet to decide how to keep the world under control, but they would call it safe after World War II concluded. This was definitely a plan for victory, and it was a meeting of the presumed victors. The Soviets and the Chinese refused to meet with each other at this time, so the

Congress, the conference had to be held in two sessions, hence two weeks. so okay real quick question so umbarton hoax was in 44 yeah august uh yeah i'm sorry not uh not two weeks um a month and a month in like three weeks so okay six weeks seven seven six weeks august 21st through october seventh okay um i forgot that september exists yeah when when we're talking about China yes in this context yes is that shankai shak and the nationalists is that mostly well Mao is doing a lot of the fighting too right yeah so the two set aside their fight so that they could fight you know the Japanese imperialists right okay and so the reason I ask is because well you know we're not going to be there if the if the soviets are right sounds very much chanky shack yes

quite so yeah all right so uh America ran the whole thing they controlled the narratives and they set all the agendas um they also by like crazy on all the delegates but I mean honestly whoever would have hosted it would have done that would have done the same thing

America designed the security detail complete with the I'm sorry the security council I'm sorry not America did that um the the big four right. The UN will have a security council and any member on the council, you know, there's five permanent members and any member on the council can veto anything. And that ends up being used to allow all sorts of heinous shit for the next 70 plus years. Yeah. Up to it including this year.

And it has permanent members as well as the role of Soviet Union and other parts of the United Nations. Stalin himself was not present, but he instructed his delegation to exceed to whatever organizational structures and rules that were made, so long as the Soviet Union stayed on the permanent security council and had veto power. Okay. Because there's one thing Stalin knew was how to fucking use the rules to get in charge. Oh, yeah. That's how he took over, you know?

Now, this predates the Yalta conference where Roosevelt accepted the veto recommendations that Stalin insisted on. Yalta would happen about a month before this pamphlet was printed in February. of 45. So it's sensible that the conference wasn't mentioned. By the way, this pamphlet came out about three weeks before FDR died. Oh, wow. Yeah. He died on, I think, April 12th. Yeah. But this conference set the stage for and the expectations that Daubart & Oaks did for creating the United Nations, which was in many ways an effort to keep fascism from ever taking hold again. Yeah. And in other ways, it was an effort to establish American hegemony and security through international institutions.

Yes. If there's one way you could point out the philosophical differences between the two poles of world power after the World War II, America believed in international institutions as a source of security, the USSR believed in land as security. Yeah. And I get why. Yeah, well, yeah, because when you look at their geographical realities, you know, the United States had stayed out of the war so long because we had oceans, literally, you know, geographically separating us from the conflict. Exactly.

The Russians had been invaded by just about everybody in Europe at some point or another in their history. Frederick, Napoleon, Hitler, like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, yeah. So, of course, we want buffer states. Yeah. So, so, yeah, we're going to, so the, so the Warsaw Pact is us and all of our satellite states. We're going to be our, our, our oblative territory defense, you know. So, yeah, I mean, it makes perfect sense.

Mm-hmm. And, and still echoes down to this day. You think? Sadly. Yeah. What's old as new. Back to the pamphlet, put out by the Department of War.

In 1945, yeah. In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism, which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations. Right now, our native fascists are spread. spreading anti-British, anti-Soviet, anti-French, and anti-Unated Nations propaganda. They know that allied unity now foretells a certain defeat of fascism abroad.

They know that post-war allied unity means world peace and security. They realize that fascism cannot thrive or grow under these conditions. Three, it is accurate to call a member of the Communist Party a communist. For short, he is often called a red. indiscriminate pinning of the label red on people and proposals, which one opposes, is a common political device. It is a favorite trick of a native as well as foreign-born fascists or foreign fascists. So just pointing out that the army is saying red baiting is a bad idea. Yeah, yeah, funny how they're saying that in 45.

Uh-huh. And they're teaching soldiers that. They're teaching soldiers this. And it was the Army McCarthy hearings that led to McCarthy over extending. What's been true about the American military forever, though, is that they are a communist hotbed. Oh, yeah, I mean, full of pinkos. Yeah, you're kidding. Yeah.

After all, there was a general who said that he'd read the Marxist manifesto, as well as had read critical race theory a couple years back, remember? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. Back to the pamphlet. Many fascists make the spurious claim that the world has but two choices, either fascism or communism. And they label communist everyone who refuses to support them.

By attacking our free enterprise, capitalist democracy, and by denying the effectiveness of our way of life, they hope to trap many people. Hitler insisted that only fascism could save Europe and the world from the communist menace. There were many people inside and outside Germany and Italy who welcomed and supported Hitler and Mussolini because they believed fascism was the only safeguard against communism.

The red bogey was a convincing enough argument to help Hitler take and maintain power. The Rome-Burlin-Tokio Axis, whose aggressions plunge the world into global war was called the anti-common-turn axis. It was proclaimed by Hitler Mussolini and Hirohito as a, quote, bulwark against communism learning to identify native fascists and to detect their techniques is not easy

they plan it that way but it is vitally important to learn to spot them even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal drape themselves with the american flag and attempt to carry out their program in the name of democracy that they are trying to destroy yeah all of that tracks And then I'm going to end with how to stop it. And it asks the question of how can we prevent fascism from developing in the United States. I'm going to stop it there for this episode because I can pick right back up there and everything will flow nicely. Yeah. So I will ask you, what have you gleaned, my friend?

The paradox of tolerance. Hmm. um you know the the these are not tolerable ideas and they are not tolerable people um what i what i keep remembering uh when i keep being reminded of uh you know when when you were talking about moseley and you were talking about you know the black shirts in this country and or the black legion rather, in this country. And it being hard to tell what the actual numbers of the Silver Legion were because of, you know, correction and everything. What I remember is even the professional fascists, if you will, the Germans who, like, we have this idea in our popular culture of the Germans and the Nazis in particular.

being you know incredibly precise and everything is is calculated down to the fifth decimal place and all of that right and there is there is there is something you know real there you know they did they were remarkably exhaustive record keepers of their own evil but at the same time survivor accounts from Sobibor I'm trying to

remember which camps it was that I remember hearing this about talked about how you know they witnessed

the banality of every single German officer being on the take not only in that they were

stealing the property of the people that they were that they were murdering but they would steal that property and it was supposed to all be going to the Reich

and they were just pocketing it left and fucking right because because you know I mean when you've sunk that low why not right? Well not only why not though that is in many ways part of the design because now you're going to keep your fucking mouth shut oh yeah because you don't want to get caught either like that's the thing about corruption spreading the corruption

is a way to ensure that you don't get in trouble for that corruption yeah yeah and you know just the the the extent to which everything everything about this ideology is shitty like like it's so stupid like number one it is just numb fuck dumb uh number two uh number two it is it is rooted in all of the worst impulses of humanity yep and and i'm trying to remember where i saw it but it was a really great summary from from somebody um and and now i'm going to have to look up where i heard it but it was it was i think somebody on on uh blue sky or threads or somewhere talking about you don't become an asshole because you're because you become a

fascist you become a fascist because you already were an asshole yeah and and and fascism gives you an intellectual framework to justify being one yep and like every single example of all of these people, there's not a one of them who's not just a complete fucking shit heel. Yep. Like, like, on every level, on every, you know, people, people who want to try to minimize or want to try to, you know, apologize for their lack of engagement or their, their being these. kinds of people will say well you know but you know uh decent people you know we we can all we can all disagree you know and and you know whatever whatever they think politically you know they they they're you get along with them as your neighbors and it's like no i wouldn't get

along with these people as my neighbors these would be the people that would be rolling coal down my fucking street these are the people who would be uh you know trying to try to find ways to you know move the fence six inches onto my property you know because if if the rules matter it's only for how they can manipulate them and if they're going and if they they don't like a rule they're going to try to fucking ignore it and try to argue that it doesn't that it doesn't apply to them yeah they're assholes like no there was something i heard recently about uh the jedi versus the sith and and you know me i i've joked that the jedi have had it coming because they were stupid for all these reasons yeah and I still hold that but the Jedi follow the rules the

Sith exploit the rules yeah and same thing fascists will exploit the rules until they have the power to ignore the rules yeah so yeah so that's my okay that's my takeaway yeah no that's totally fair um cool well what do you want people to consume this week What I'm going to recommend for people to consume, give me a second here, is actually a book by Theodore Roosevelt. And this is unrelated entirely to what we've been talking about. And I think it might make for an interesting historical break from it. The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt. It was originally written in the 1880s.

He put it together as part of his thesis at university and then developed it out into a full book. And it is a very, very well-researched, very thorough history of exactly what it says on the 10, Naval War of 1812. And his particular prose style is remarkably readable. It's very clear that he has an axe to grind. He definitely has a point of view. But his recounting of events is very well balanced. And his opinion, when he shares his opinion, And it's very clearly that he is making a judgment call on, on, you know, a commander's decision somewhere or whatever.

And so, anyway, it's a, it's a great book. And it's relevant for me right now because of what I'm researching for my, for my master's degree. But highly recommended Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt. How about you? I'm going to recommend people actually watch an episode of Star Trek, Star Trek the next generation. If you got Paramount streaming, this makes it a lot easier, but it's episode 21 of season four. So season four, episode 21, the drumhead. Oh, yeah.

And it just gets into how you can use the rule of law to railroad people to have kind of mission creep and essentially have the use of the use of the words. of democracy of liberty of all these important things use those words to then bludgeon people and ruin their lives in the name of

of keeping those things alive and I think it's you know like we said earlier I started with the undersecretary of state who said that fascism is the best, best expression of democracy.

And I think, you know, words are really important to me, obviously. I pun. I used to teach Latin. I teach kids how to write. I'm an historian. But words really matter. And when you use them to mean their exact opposites, I get really edgy, really antsy. And I think this particular episode really gets at that.

because it is so easy to be taken in by the use of the words that you like. I even pointed out that, like, I would have been taken in by Huey Long with all the shit that he was saying. And he was a demagogue who kidnapped. Yeah. Well, that's what demagogue's work. Yeah. So, and, and I'm not saying I liked Huey Long. I'm saying that, um, men like that are dangerous because even those of those of us who think those of us who value words those we can also be taken it oh yeah and the fact that any of us can be taken in is a really important thing to remember and I think this episode kind of gets at the heart of that yeah I fully agree fully agree cool where can we be found

we can be found on our website at woba woba woba woba dot geekhistorytime.com we can also be found on the apple podcast app the amazon podcast app and on Spotify. You are here right now, so you have already found us somewhere. Wherever that was, please take the time to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And you, sir, individually, where can you be found? You can find me with capital punishment at the Comedy Spot in Sacramento at 9 p.m. on September 5th and October 3rd. Bring your $15 for your ticket. Better yet, get your ticket online to avoid the rush, but then bring more money for the merch.

Because we have buttons, we have pins, we have stickers, we have shirts, really good stuff all the way around. And the show itself is the real reason why you're there. And speaking of the importance of words, oh, my goodness. Just the other night, I made a pun about Dr. Seuss and a serial killer. And it was glorious. So it's the son of Sam I am. So. Oh, God.

But anyway, so yeah, you can find me again, September 5th and October 3rd, 9 p.m. at the comedy spot in Sacramento. So come on down. Well, for a geekistrieve time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.