Behind the Bastards - Part Two: Mosley: The British Hitler Who Inspired the Christchurch Shooter

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

In Part Two, Robert is joined again by Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston to discuss Oswald Mosley.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science, and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated

two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. This is Behind the Bastards podcast. Bad people talk about them. I'm Robert Evans. This is part two of our episode on Oswald Mosley. So don't listen to this unless you've listened to episode one, you fucking maniac. My guess is you're a maniac. Unless you're a maniac, in which case I enjoy watching all the episodes in reverse order for no good reason. If you play them backwards, I will tell you to do drugs and worship the devil. But I did that, I tell you that. You're supposed to play it backwards while you're watching Wizard of Oz. Either way, do

drugs and worship the devil. That's just common sense. My guess today, as with last time, Cody Johnston, Katie Stoll, did not mix up your first names this time. It was awful. Traumatic. I don't want to relive it, actually. It was the 9-11 of this podcast episode. But we've moved on. We'll never forget, but we're moving on. Like we did from 9-11 into an 18-year-long $6 trillion war. This is the second year. This episode is the second year of the 18-year-long. When we're all still kind of on board, we're really excited about where it's going. We'll get it. We'll get it.

I'm excited for the point where we all watch 300 and take a message about the war on terror away from it. But this conversation, this has gotten off track. We've got the coffee mate back on the table. One pump, one cream. One pump, one cream. One pump, one cream, obviously. I just feel so guilty that it wasn't on the table before. Yeah. I mean, I felt it, but I didn't want to. Let's re-record the last episode. Let's do it. Let's re-record the last episode. Just pretend we mentioned one pump, one cream an awful lot.

Well, we're always thinking about it. We're always thinking about it. The thing is, is that's true. I think about it a lot now. Yeah. Because one pump is, in fact, one cream. Doesn't have very good stamina. One pump is one cream. One pump is one cream. You know who wouldn't have agreed with that? Oh.

A little fascist. Oh, no. It was actually six foot two. Don't say it. Named Oswald Mosley. Six foot two. Oswald Tommy Mosley. A little big fascy. Didn't think that one pump was one cream.

I don't think he did. I don't think he did. I was on board with this guy, but now I'm having some second. Second thoughts. Now you're questioning his. Well, I liked, I mean, like Britain First, you know, you got to put your people, yeah, the first. Absolutely.

And I was listening. It was like, it sounds like this guy's probably going to be on board with one pump, one cream. He's great at piloting, except for that one time. But he's trying to impress his mom. I think she would have been more impressed if one of his pumps had equaled one cream. I think she wants a few more.

She would have agreed. I think she wants a few more pumps before a cream. Look out, I didn't want to say she. They're British, Kate. Oh, that's true. I don't even want to say she would be disappointed. Yeah. Well, because, you know, the women are supposed to lie down

to think of England, right? Isn't that the phrase? So if one pump is one cream, that's, well, actually, that's less thinking of England. I'm very confused now. One pump, one cream, one nation. Nice. All right.

Nice. One nation. Cream first. Cream first. Gross, guys. Really? Starting up. Top pre-gross.

But one day we're going to get invited on to Come Town. I don't know what that podcast is, but I know there's a podcast called Come Town. I'm full of a name. I assume it's terrible. It sounds like something Cody would have wanted to start. Or great. It could be.

I really don't know. It could be great. They could be talking about one pump, one cream right now. They could be. And if so, I support them. I was tapping my favorites on the table. It doesn't translate. Yeah, there's a vision.

To the audio medium. Visual performance right here. It does make me feel more confident, though. Yeah. I'm sure everyone's loving this. What are you? Sophie's gotten up from her table. She's showing me a laptop.

A special podcast of the Come Boys. Full description. That's the Come Town video? Okay. All right. That adds up. I bet they make $100,000 a month. They deserve it.

$100,000 pumps, $100,000 creams. I wonder how many pumps are in this Nestle Coffee Mate. There's only one way to find out. I think we figured out a great idea for bonus content. Yeah, we're canceling this episode. We're just going to find out. You can learn about Mosley later. We're going to pump this cream.

Looks like it's about 300. 300? Sounds better if you say hundo. 30 days after opening. I feel like it's been more than 30 days since we recorded it. Yeah. No. But we don't know when it was opened.

We don't know when it was opened. Yeah. So back to Oswald Mosley. Oswald Tommy Mosley. Oswald Tommy Mosley. 62. Antisemitism was obviously the cornerstone of German fascism, but it was not nearly as prominent in Italian or Spanish fascism.

Those sorts of attitudes were still quite common in both countries, but it was more the result of centuries of bigotry rather than the highly evolved eliminationist antisemitism practiced by the Nazis. Mosley, in public at least, declared that antisemitism was completely separate from fascism. He refused to let the BUF distribute antisemitic propaganda, which led to one of his further right opponents in the Imperial Fascist League to declare the British Union of Fascists the British Junion of Fascists.

Oh, dig. That's a burn. Get right on out of there. But did you get it? Because it's Union, but he made it. Oh! Oh, I didn't even get that part. Yeah.

Can I react again? Can I react again? Yes. Nice. I feel like that's what it deserves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll give it its due. In 1933, Mosley gave a statement to the Jewish Chronicle,

in which he swore that, quote, antisemitism forms no part of the policy of this organization, and antisemitic propaganda is forbidden. But while the propaganda was forbidden, antisemites themselves were very much allowed in the BUF. One of their most notorious speakers was also one of England's most notorious racists. William Brooke Joyce was an Anglo-Irish firebrand

who got his political start working as a courier for British Army Intelligence against the Irish Republican Army. In the mid-20s, he became a conservative political activist. During a 1924 meeting for a candidate he supported, Joyce claimed he was slashed across the cheek by a Jewish Communist with a razor blade, leaving a prominent scar that he'd have for the rest of his life. In 1992, Joyce's biographer talked to his first wife,

who claimed, quote, it wasn't a Jewish Communist who disfigured him. He was knifed by an Irish woman. Good on you, Irish woman. Oh, he probably deserved it. Yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of problems with the IRA, but in 1930s, not the guys on the wrong side of the conflict. Different story, later on, but...

That's another behind the bastards. That's another behind the bastards, yeah. Joyce would later gain prominence in life as Lord Ha Ha, broadcasting pro-Nazi propaganda from Germany into England during the course of the war. He was executed in 1946 for these crimes. But during the 1930s, he was a member of the BUF, and its first prominent anti-Semite,

according to the death of British fascism, quote, BUF policy initially forced Joyce to temper his violently anti-Semitic views. Mosley's position on anti-Semitism was clear. It was irrelevant to fascism. Despite this handicap to Joyce's ideology, his talent for incisive rhetoric soon made him the most renowned speaker in the BUF after Mosley himself.

So, Joyce was made the BUF's propaganda director in 1934. He gradually started to pepper in more and more anti-Semitism with his pro-fascist rants. He repeatedly stated that the core of all Britain's problems was Jewish people. He ranted about, quote, a two-pronged Jewish advance by means of capitalism and communism towards world domination.

Yeah. There we go. You only need one prong. Well, and you know, capitalism and communism are clearly two prongs of the same form, the third prong of which is Bitcoin? But they didn't have a term for it then. They didn't have it.

They hadn't figured it out yet. It was still waiting to get mined at numbers? Yeah, you mined the numbers. We hadn't discovered bitcoins. We hadn't discovered bitcoins. We had them in the number earth. The third prong of the communism, capitalism, and fork. I feel like we figured that out.

Now, Joyce was far from the only inveterate racist in the British Union of fascists. Many of Mosley's earliest followers were super anti-Jewish. I spelled it that way. Yeah, good. I mean, you want to emphasize that. You do.

One pump is one cream. Now, when he was questioned about this, Mosley would claim that these men were allowed in the BOF because he knew that in spite of their bigotry, they wanted to move past that into a bigger and better fight. How do you reason with that nonsense? That's nonsense. I mean, reasoning might be a strong word for what you do with it.

Like, what do you think bigotry leads? To the better things. I guess that's how you reason it. Nonsense. Yeah, you might reason it with, like, I don't know. I mean, oh, I see what you mean. Get these people on the phone. I want to talk to them.

That's how I would respond to it. But yeah, where's your justification? Right. Like, it's just nonsense. And I want to have, I think they needed talking to. You think you're going to give a talking to anti-Semitism? I think I would like to talk to anti-Semitism real quick. Get them on the horn.

Let's see what we can get through today. Hello. Concept of anti-Semitism? Cody, Cody would like to talk to you. Yes, please. He's on speaker. What? Come on.

What are you doing? I'm trying to give a way to be the voice of anti-Semitism without just, like, saying anti-Semitic propaganda. Right, yeah. Because I ruined so much of it. Yeah, I know. It's problematic. We should probably just move on from this bit.

Sure. My point being, oh, that's nonsense. Yeah, it's nonsense. Point taken. Well, Moseley continued to assert that anti-Semitism had no place in his party. The realities on the street were quite different. British Jews and fascist activists clashed constantly in the back alleys and byways of London. In April 1933, London police arrested seven BUF members and six Jewish people

for disturbing the peace. The fascists had been out selling copies of black shirt in a Jewish neighborhood. They'd been attacked by a group of local Jews who knew damn well what was going on in Germany, and didn't believe a word of Moseley's where non-fascists line. Everyone involved was arrested, but nobody was charged. This sparked another street fight, a week later, when 12 members of the BUF returned to the same street corner to hawk their racist wares. Three of the fascists were injured, and one was hospitalized.

Eight Jews were arrested. The officer who booked them noted that the fascists had been extremely provocative prior to the fight. Incidents like this, and even bloodier than this, grew more common as the BUF expanded and slid further towards outright racism. Although, it sounds to me like the anti-fascists here, the violent ones. It does sound that way. It sounds like these guys were just handing out some anti-Jewish propaganda

in a Jewish neighborhood of an ideology that was leading to Jewish people being put in camps in another country, not very far away. And then these violent people decided to attack them. The first part of what you said, I mean, you used too many words to describe them. It's a free speech. Free speech. They were doing a free speech. They were doing a free speech.

They were doing a free speech, and these monsters showed up. And hated their free speech. For no reason. Yeah, they did the hate speech. They did the hate speech. They did hate speech against their free speech, because they hated what they were saying. I never thought I'd be supportive of fascism, but here we are. It's just, you know, free speech.

We don't need to analyze the question of free speech anymore than that. No. And there's no way in which advocating for an ideology that led to six million people being burnt alive in ovens and gas to death and such. There's no way in which advocating for that speech is comparable to yelling fire in a crowded theater. No, I don't know. No, in no way, shape or form. I couldn't even describe it in a way that could be argued.

Yeah, let's read the next pair. The Jewish community in England was divided as to how to respond to the BUF. Some people obviously preferred punching fascists to dialogue, but many felt like the violence was counterproductive. On August 4th, 1933, the Jewish Chronicle called Jewish attacks on BUF activists wicked and stupid. This condemnation was not enough to change most people's beliefs that fascism had to be confronted violently in the streets rather than debated. The BUF's official turning point towards open, proud anti-Semitism was the Olympia

Rally, which is the rally we talked about in the last episode of all the Disruptors. Mosley gave his first anti-Jewish address on October 28th, 1934. This marked the very first time he referenced the Jews in a speech, saying, quote, The Jews, more than any other single force in this country, are carrying on a violent propaganda against us. Oswald Mosley then stated, with zero evidence, that 32 of the 34 people convicted for violent attacks on fascists had been Jewish.

Mosley claimed that, in total, Jewish people were responsible for 50% of all attacks on his men. Now, it's hard to say how much of this was ideological, based on deeply felt beliefs and how much of it was just due to soulless politicking. The death of British fascism notes, quote, Much of this shift in ideology can be attributed to an effort to win over the urban working class. Mosley hoped to fill a niche in anti-immigrant propaganda present in Britain for decades. Organizations such as the British Brothers League had gained significant following in urban areas in previous years.

Formed in 1902, the League espoused an anti-Semitic platform seeking to limit Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. Its limited success can be attributed to the traditional friction of the working class with large immigrant populations during times of scarcity. Perceived competition over jobs, customers, and culture led to reactions from native Britons. Conditions in 1934 were ripe for this kind of clash, and Mosley hoped to capitalize with a new Britain for the British policy,

thereby further marginalizing British-Jewish immigrants. Yep. Yep. There's a lot like nachoism to me. But nothing like anything that ever happened afterwards. No, no, no, Britain for British people. Did you know that, like, Jewishness and immigrants and Marxism are all the same thing?

Well, of course, Cody. Because of the famous Jew, Karl Marx. Yes. As the creator of The Daily Mail, Ned. As the off-described German Jew, Karl Marx. As described by the creator of The Daily Mail, the largest English and Dillinggood newspaper in the world. Yeah.

I feel confident in where and how I get my information. And you know what's frustrating is how the left owns the media. I've noticed that too. You've noticed that too. You get that crazy. Is that the same as those three things that I mentioned? It is the same as those three things you mentioned. It seems like it's the same thing as those things.

Why don't people realize this? I, we should, if there was like more media, like public figures who would say the truth about how those four things are the same. Cody, I have some great news about a fellow named Dr. Jordan Peterson. Ooh! You are gonna love this guy.

Yeah, does he write books? Does he have good thoughts? He's got a strong-sounding name. And pajamas with lobsters on them for some reason. Can I buy them? Absolutely! Okay, but what if I want those lobsters on like an iPhone case?

You can get that along with your cup of leftist tears. Ooh, I love making- On his Society Six page? Uh. Jesus. Leftist cry and drinking their tears. Oh, what a fun time. And apologies.

Warm, salty water to own the libs. You know what I love is that it's never not been this way. Yeah, that's my favorite thing too. That's the best thing. We all just didn't realize it for a while. Cause like a guy who was like sane and good at passing a sane with a president. Yeah, and like sort of.

And he did fucked up shit, but we were all like, but when he talks, he doesn't incite racial hatred. And for like- For low bar. Yeah, super low bar. You can murder so many people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like robots. Yeah.

You'd have robots do it. Yeah, sure. Why not? Why not? Yeah. Anyway. It was the same then too. Yeah.

Mostly consented to insist that his attacks on Jewish people were not done on racial or religious grounds, but instead, quote, because they fight against fascism. Ooh, yeah. Which is interesting. So he doesn't hate them because they're Jewish, he hates them because they're anti-fascist. That's very interesting.

And why did he hate him when he was younger? I'm curious. Well, his granddad wouldn't let him in the house. Oh, so you're, so it's like learned. It's like a learned behavior. Yeah. So like the sort of like, it's like a learned behavior in that like, you learn about history first from your parents

and then you hear about it more from the school and then you read about it more in books by Dr. George Peterson. And then you're walking around in your lobster pajamas and you realize you just spent like, I don't know, 500 bucks on lobsters for your iPhone. Oh, boy. As a fun fact, in the wake of that Christchurch shooting,

I wrote a bunch of articles and did a bunch of media appearances talking about A Chance Poleboard. And they have been commenting on it. And in addition to threatening me, they are now very convinced that I'm Jewish. Because I have a large nose, which is like, obviously it doesn't matter what ethnicity my family is, but they're very convinced of that.

As are they of everyone who was on the documentary that I was on. They've got pictures of us all together, talking about our Ashkenazi features. Right, are there a lot of circles on it? Of course. Of course there's circles on it. Oh, yes.

Yeah. That's. I'm angry. It's really, I can't make jokes about it because I'm angry. Yeah. OK, we are well off the rails here. So now, while all the street fighting and racing was going on, the BOF continued to expand rather rapidly.

It recruited primarily in industrial areas, often from the vast ranks of Britain's unemployed workers. As many of his recruits were former Labour Party supporters as were Conservatives. Many joined not out of racism or a specific desire to live under a dictatorship, but because they were desperate for money. One member later recalled, quote,

the story was that Mosley was a millionaire, and all you had to do was join the BOF and you'd be looked after. OK. Yeah. The BOF's financial backers were mostly middle class businessmen and a few wealthy snobs, but most of them refused to actually take to the streets.

The poor disenfranchised and laid off made up the bulk of the street movement. I found a great slate article by Martin Pugh, author of Hurrah for the Black Shirts, a book about fascism in Britain between the wars, quote, the movement was highly opportunistic in that it exploited issues which had local relevance, mostly focused as speaking tours and areas of declining industry, notably

Lancashire and Yorkshire, where the working class Conservative tradition offered potential recruits. In Cotton Towns, he campaigned for the recovery of Britain's export markets in India. In the Yorkshire Woolen Centers, he denounced competition by low wage Asian countries and the boycotting of British goods by Jews. And in mining districts such as Barnsley,

he condemned imports of coal from Poland while British workers remained unemployed. I mean, do we need to draw the conclu... I don't see any conclusions. Do we need to explicitly make the comparisons? No, we don't anymore. Do we want to like use like... That question you just asked, this is all the work we need.

All right, you want to let... You spit the words. I say we just let people stew with that and break for some of those sweet, sweet ads. I love that idea. Almost as much as I love whatever products. By the way, if you work for a company that makes an ads, the acts like tool, please advertise on our show

because I would love to do a plug, like an ad transition. Where I do that, it would be satisfying to me on like a glottal level. Sure, yeah. If you're an ads manufacturer. Yeah, just like a fun little... Congratulations on your business. All right, guys, how you doing?

It is a niche... Yeah. But you know. Congratulations on your customer. Hit him up. Products! During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI

had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside

an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse were like a lot of guns. He's a shark.

And not on the good and bad ass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC.

What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me, about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down.

It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price.

Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted

before they realize that this stuff's all bogus? It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. So Martin Pugh, author of her Offer the Black Shirts, also notes that one of the primary things that differentiated Mosley from his German and Italian fascist counterparts

was the prominent position women held in the BUF. Feminist icon Oswald Mosley, I can see. Yeah, there we go. Oswald Mosley was the fascist equivalent of a, oh, feminist icon. I just wrote that into the script. By which I mean he was happy to use women's votes to try to strip power away from women.

Smart man. Smart man. Oswald's mother, Maude, ran the women's section of the BUF. She was followed in that job by several ex-suffragettes who came to regret supporting their own right to vote for reasons I can't quite wrap my head around. Women eventually composed more than a quarter of the BUF. Their uniform was a black blouse and beret with a gray skirt.

No lipstick or makeup was allowed. In 1934, the Sunday Dispatch decided to hold a beauty contest for female black shirts, which again, makes zero sense to me. Nobody entered. Mosley posited this was because, quote, these were serious women dedicated to the cause of their country rather than aspirants

to the Gayety Theater Chorus, which it's weird to me that a magazine not associated with the fascist movement would decide to hold a beauty contest just for fascist ladies. Like, I don't know. It's weird. What is going on? That's weird.

That's all over the place. You can't wear makeup, but we're going to. We're going to do a beauty contest. We're not fascists, but we're going to hold a beauty contest for your ladies. It's weird. Yeah, the sexiest fascist out there. What if we have the sexiest fascists?

This is the problem, this right here with their whole thing. You're all over the place with the women thing. You're all over the place with the women thing. Well, I mean, the fascists were consistent, because none of them signed up. I'll give that to them. All right, credit is where it's due. They didn't wear makeup, Katie.

I bet that brought down the amount of sexual harassment. I bet there was a lot of sexual harassment. No, I bet there wasn't because there's no makeup. Thank you very much, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, for your great idea of sexual harassment in the workplace. You guys are taking the pounding in this duck. I didn't mean to. I'm like, I don't think he's a Nazi or anything.

I think he's a funny man. Funny, funny man. Funny, funny guy. Funny, funny guy. I also like that Tommy put his mom in charge. Yeah, well, Tommy's mommy. Exactly. Look at me, mom.

Tommy's mommy, mom. In an alternate universe out there, there is an equally incredible The Who album called Tommy, but it's about Ospal's father. Oh, absolutely. And it's still amazing. I've been waiting this whole time to try to slip that in there somehow.

Can you hear me? I mean, it does start with, got a feeling 21 is going to be a good year, which is, I think, when he took off. I think that's his. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this might be what it is. This might be what it is. Right, maybe that's what it is.

That's what it is. Pinball wizard is a euphemism. Pinball grand wizard. Pinball grand wizard. Wow. Wow. Oh. There's a whole song about child molestation

in that rock opera. Is there really? Fiddle About. OK. It's about his wicked uncle Ernie molesting it. It's a great song. It's a great song. A lot of problematic songs from that era in hindsight.

It's a fucking fantastic album. They deal with it with care. Yeah, it's my favorite album about Ospal mostly. News, Tommy. Of the five albums about Ospal mostly. Oh, there was that nine hour Coheed and Cambria black shirt. Amnesia also. Lady Fascists also trained in Jiu Jitsu,

so they could fight anti-fascists who came to break up meetings. This was mainly because so many British anti-fascists were women. And it was not considered decent for male black shirts to beat them up. Many lady fascists were former suffragettes, as I already noted.

One of them, Mary Richardson, explained, quote, I was first attracted to the black shirts because I saw in them the courage, the action, the loyalty, the gift of service, and the ability to serve, which I had known in the Suffragette movement. It's all about service. Service loyalty. Some of Mosley's success with women voters

likely came from the fact that he was rather dashing. According to a Good Slate article on Mosley's popularity with women, quote, much of his impact depended on sheer physical presence. As a labor MP, Mosley had played up to the admiring young women in his audiences by smiling at them, caressing his mustache with one hand, while slapping his trouser leg with the other,

and being rewarded with cries of, oh, Valentino. I'm gonna guess she had to be in the 30s to get why women would say that. Being rewarded with cries of one pomp when crammed. Most of these lady activists were, of course, mothers. And mothers, of course, raised sons. One of those sons was journalist Trevor Grundy. He wrote a memoir in 19, don't comment on him.

He's not a bad guy. Yeah, no, okay. It's fine for his name to be Grundy. Yep, Grundy wrote a memoir in 1998 about his experiences being raised as a Mosleyite. The Telegraph wrote an article about that, and I'm going to quote from it. Quote, Trevor Grundy recalled how,

when he was just a boy after the war, his mother used to come out on the front step of their house in Paddington to see him off to school. As he turned out of the square where they lived, he'd wave back at her. Each morning, she'd stand to attention and fling out her right arm in a full fascist salute. I returned it.

PJ, she shouted. Mosley followers speak for parish Judah. I shouted back, I shouted it back, and then he'd run, satchel flying to catch his bus. Yikes. Parrish Judah. PJ. PJ.

Pajamas. Pajamas. Oh, I hate what that stands for. That's not great. Now, that little anecdote is from after the war, but I'd like to get into it. Oh, because it's after the war. It's after the war, and we'll get into what became

a Mosley during World War II later. So that makes it worse. That does make it worse. That makes it worse. Yeah, that makes it worse for his mom, for sure. But I'd like to get into a little bit more about the children of the Mosleyites first. Specifically, I'd like to talk about their summer camps.

Yes, please. If there's one thing we've learned in this show, it's that fascists love summer camps. Especially catching frogs. If they just want a nice cool coast to camp in. This would be a cool coast kid, you know? All the coasts in England are pretty cool. They are.

Because it is a cold fucking island. It's cold, cliffy. Great food. Let's go. You're not showing off your bikini bod there, though. No, but I don't have one. So no bikini bods, no makeup. No makeup.

Gray shirt, no, skirts. That actually sounds fine. Gray's a lovely color. Gray's a lovely color. Yeah. Now. I love color. I meant to say I love that color.

Now, let's talk about their summer camps. Quote, it was near here on farmland around Pagam and Selsey that fascist summer camps were set up by Moseley followers during the 1930s. For 25 shillings a week, members in their hundreds would come with their children from all over England for sea bathing, fellowship, and fun. There was also an educational aspect to the gatherings

and even a jokey camp newsletter. It became part of the folklore that Moseley's annual visit always brought the sun out. People would refer to it as leader weather. At eight or nine years old, Diana was brought along by her parents. There's a girl in the story. What?

Leader weather? Yeah. As an interesting cross-fascist parallel, when stormy weather blanketed Western Europe in 1944, grounding Allied aircraft and providing cover for the Wehrmacht during the infamous Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis called those storm clouds, furor weather, which is the same thing as leader weather.

This is leader weather. Leader weather. Oh, god. These guys think the sun shines, but they're what? All fascists are just losers in a cult. So, yeah. Leader weather. Those poor kids.

Those poor kids. They just wanted to chase frogs. They just wanted to chase frogs. Like summer camp, great. Oh, we got to be Nazis. Wait a minute. We got to talk about leader weather. We got to say PJ.

OK, I like Pajama. Oh, no. Oh. This brutality doesn't seem so whimsical right now. That was promised. Whimsical brutality? Whimsical brutality? I am not.

So, since we've talked about battles, which we did a little bit ago before a digression, let's talk about another battle, the battle of Cable Street. This is one of, if not the most, important moments in the history of anti-fascist activism. And in fact, most modern anti-fascists who know their shit historically will

point back to the battle of Cable Street as sort of evidence for why their tactics are effective. After 1934, the BUF grew more and more aggressively anti-Semitic and closer in tenor to the actual Nazi party. Oswald Mosley declared a war against organized Jewry near the end of that year. And his black shirts began a campaign in London's East End. This was a heavily Jewish part of town,

and his goal was to basically radicalize all the Gentiles living near Jewish areas. For the next two years, violence between black shirts and Jewish people escalated, culminating in a planned march by Oswald Mosley and 3,000 of his supporters across Cable Street. Locals attempted to head this march off. They gathered thousands of signatures for a petition,

asked the local council to ban the fascist march. The council refused, and in the name of free speech, gathered 6,000 police officers to protect the fascists while they marched along Cable Street. I did put the word free speech in there, so. Yeah, right. That one was, that one was not a quote. Thanks.

6,000 cops, 3,000 Nazis. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. Some might say 9,000 Nazis, but that might be unfair. Not us, but we would not say that. We would not say that. All cops are fans of behind the passerby. And cops love, yeah, cops loves this show.

They actually do. There are some fine, particularly in federal law enforcement officers who were really concerned about the problem of far-right radicalization. As it should be. Yes. But I also, it's my personal belief that it should not be illegal to espouse Nazi beliefs.

It's also my personal belief that when Nazis march, people should beat the shit out of them, and cops, if they're decent people, should be like, yeah, I'm just not going to do anything about this. He's got a swastika. Fuck it. He's literally asking for it. He's literally asking for it.

This is the one time that's incorrect. The one time, that excuse. As I was saying it, it was like, ooh, do I want to say that? For Nazis. For Nazis. For Nazis. Swastika's a target. Let it stay that way.

Black Sun. Kind of a target. Kind of a target. I feel like we count that one as a swastika. Which I used to own stuff with that on it, because I thought it looked cool. Because you didn't know, because you thought it looked cool. Because I was like 20, and we weren't

talking about that shit then. So weird how fascists can easily use fun symbols. Fun, cool-looking symbols. It's a neat design. Yeah. I accidentally made the OK sign in the picture, and then I was like, fuck, I have to delete that. See, I have a lot of mixed feelings on that.

Because are we really going to let them take the fucking OK sign? No, we're not. But I wasn't going to. But we're also not going to let fascist-adjacent, grifting piece of shit use it to provide cover for themselves. It was mostly just other people. What were you saying, Katie?

It's OK. I'm sorry. Can I penance with one pump and one cream in my mouth? Yeah. No, don't do it. Don't do it? Sure, do it. Do it.

Is this all going in? Oh, this is going in. Oh, yeah. No. He's doing the getting ready for a pump. Oh, he got a cream. It was like a half cream. Half a pump gives half a cream.

It was too much hazelnut. It's dribbling down your shirt. He's covered in hazelnut. It's almost like someone busted a hazelnut. Yeah. No one might say that. That was horrible. After half a pump.

Too much cream. You're going to get too much cream. I did not like that. Yeah, it wasn't great. Point is, Katie, don't delete the photo of yourself to me, OK? I already did. Anyway, that really disrupted my train of thought.

I know. There's still very strong hazelnut flavor in my mouth. Oh, OK. The march was intended to go from the royal mint through Shortich, Limehouse, Bow, and eventually Bethnal Grain. I'm sure I've mispronounced all of those names. But again, colonialism.

Mosley would give speeches at a number of predetermined spots along the route of March. This was the plan, but it did not quite work out that way. See, the years of brawling and escalating fascist violence had taught the serried anti-fascists and Jewish activists of London a couple of things. Since the march was planned well in advance, they had time to gather their own counter-demonstrators.

A vast alliance of Jews, Irish dock workers, trade unionists, socialists, and communists put down their differences and came together to stop some goddamn Nazis from goo-stepping through the streets of London. On October 4, 1936, Oswald Mosley, 3,000 fascists, and 6,000 cops assembled on Cable Street. They were met by a force of between 100 and 300,000 anti-fascists.

Wow. Yeah. The counter-demonstrators commandeered a bus and a tram to use as makeshift barricades. We threw sticks, rocks, furniture, rotten fruit, and human urine and fecal matter at the badly outnumbered police and BUF men. The fascists tried to start up a chant, M-O-S-L-E-Y,

we want Mosley, and the crowd shouted back, much louder, so do we, alive or dead. Oh. Yeah, solid, solid chant. Solid chant. The police deployed to push back the anti-fascists, meeting their chair legs and pipes with good old fashioned British billy clubs, and of course, police horses,

the ultimate riot control weapon of the last several centuries. But the anti-fascists set a plan for these as well. Hundreds of local children rushed up and deployed their marble collections, rolling them under the feet of the horse cops and effectively impeding the police advance. Amazing. The crowd began to chant, they shall not pass, a reference to the battle cry of Spanish anti-fascists

who battled General Franco's men during that nation's Civil War. More than 80 protesters were arrested, 73 cops were injured. In the end, local resistance was just far too much for them to handle. Commissioner of Police Sir Philip Game asked the Home Secretary for permission to cancel the march, which was given.

The fascists were ordered to disperse, having never even started their march. The victory in the street was immediately celebrated by leftist and Jewish newspapers. Here's the times of Israel. Quote, Battlestop Mosley March declared a banner headlines on the labor supporting Daily Herald,

while the Communist Party's Daily Worker let its report with, Mosley did not pass. East London routes the fascists. The Jewish Chronicle was barely less exuberant. The people said no, its story of events in the East end was headlined. So, Max Levitas, a protester that day who was interviewed about it many years later,

called the Battle of Cable Street, quote, a victory for ordinary people against racism and anti-Semitism. That is surely true, but the exact extent of this victory is a little harder to parse out. Cable Street was not the end of fascism in Britain, or even in London's East end. And we're gonna talk about that a little bit more

after some ads. Oh yeah. Ads advertisements? Ad advertisements. I do wanna, I do wanna, I do wanna, I'm really proud of those people for figuring out the marbles. I love it so much.

Well, we can't the little kids. Yeah, they're the marbles. I hope that there was a little treater chin leader that's like, come on. Come on, boys. And I imagine him sounding like a New Yorker. He's a little New York kid. He just is in London's East end for no reason.

Right, it's when things start amping up. And like the, it's the end of hook. It's beautiful. Should be a movie if it's not already. It should be a movie. Watch British movies that aren't hot fuzz. Sure, yeah. Sure.

That's the one. That's the only British culture I'm aware of. I understand. I also had one of their pies lunch, which was actually a pudding or vice versa. I forget which. A hot fuzz pudding? Yes.

Okay. That sounds disgusting. Yeah. A hot fuzz pudding. A hot fuzz pudding. I guess it could be like peach pudding. I mean, no. I actually, I, I.

No, peach pudding. I don't know. No, you wouldn't. I'm trying to make hot fuzz pudding sound appetizing. I do love blood pudding, which is actually just a sausage basically. Sticky toffee pudding.

Sticky toffee pudding. That sounds like a. Sticky? Different thing. Give it the old sticky toffee pudding, didn't you, Govna? Why do they call people Govna? Because everyone's a governor there.

Oh. Mm-hmm. Oh. Colonialism. Colonialism. Because they controlled so much of the world in every day. They have a governor, yeah.

All right. Oops. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson,

and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you gotta grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI

spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark. And not in the good and bad ass way. He's a nasty shark.

He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23,

I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev,

is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left offending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price.

Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted

before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Okay. So the Battle of Kale Street was a major victory for anti-fascism in England,

but it was not the end of Oswald Mosley's movement or even fascism in the East End of London. As the Times of Israel noted, quote, in the aftermath of it, Mosley's henchmen issued blood-curdling threats. It is about time the British people of the East End knew that London's pogrom is not very far away now, warned high-ranking thug Mick Clark.

Mosley is coming every night of the week in the future to rid East London and by God, there is going to be a pogrom. A pogrom is when you murder a bunch of Jewish people and break their stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mosley was not in the East End every night of the week. As a matter of fact, he flew off to Germany

not long after the Battle of Kable Street to get married at Joseph Goebbels' house. But yeah. Oh goodness. Yep. Yeah, he did. Yeah. Well, it was a nice house.

Yeah, for sure. Because it was stolen from us. Yeah, it was a nice house. You could turn down that. It's a Nazi's kill. Yeah, of course. You got to go to the G house. You got to go to Goebbels' house to get married.

Goebbeling. Yeah. But Mosley's men stayed active in the East End. The weekend after the Battle of Kable Street was witnessed to the worst spree of anti-Semitic violence in the history of modern England. It's gone down in history as the pogrom of mile end. 200 of Mosley's black shirts ran around Stepney,

an East End neighborhood, and shattered the shop and house windows of every Jewish family they could find. They tossed an old man and a girl through a window. Manchester and Leeds also saw violent attacks. Some people argue that the Battle of Kable Street wound up being a propaganda victory for the Fascists. It's hard to say whether or not that is true, but membership in Mosley's group surged by 2,000 people

in the immediate wake of the battle. This surge was not evidence of long-lived political viability, though. Six months after Kable Street, Mosley attempted a major electoral push for the BUF in the East End. He framed the decision as a choice between us and the parties of Jewry. And yet, in spite of all that, local black shirts

only earned one-fifth of the vote. Kable Street also led to increased regulations on violent political groups. The police pushed parliament to pass a public order act. Among other things, it banned the wearing of political uniforms in public and gave the police the power to ban marches for political purposes. It also allowed police to arrest speakers

who say directed violent rhetoric towards the Jews or other minority groups. So you might argue that Kable Street, while not a decisive defeat of fascism, prompted the government and police to actually do a damn thing about all the goddamn fascists marching around in the streets and that that helped kill off the movement.

Others would argue that the main effect of Kable Street in the immediate term was to let the Jews of London know that they were not alone. Bernard Copes was 10 years old during the battle and a Jew. He would later tell the BBC, quote, my mother said there were only two types of people in the world, Jews and Jew haters. Of course, when Kable Street came along,

the Irish laborers and dockers came out and it was them that really made sure Mosley didn't get through. My mother and father really had to change their minds after that and accept that others did come to help us out. So complicated legacy. Yeah. Yeah.

The British Union of fascists stopped wearing their black shirts after Kable Street, but Mosley continued to be a major part of British political life for years to come. He diverted his focus away from the Jewish question and rewrote himself as a defender of peace. Of course, this was peace with the Nazis because Oswald really quite liked the Nazis,

but it was more palatable to the broader British public than straight racial hatred. He developed a brilliant slogan during this period. You want to guess what that slogan was? Cody? Britain first. That's exactly it. I thought it was going to be America first.

No, that would not have. That was my second guess. My second guess was going to be America first. Stupid, stupid girl. No. Britain first. And found himself working more and more with Neville Chamberlain's governments and its efforts

to appease the Germans. The BUF hit its greatest number of members, 50,000, in 1934, but it continued to remain a force in British politics until 1940. In 1939, Mosley was able to attract 20,000 people to a peace rally. Things, of course, changed rather abruptly when England went to war with the Nazi Germany.

The BUF was banned, having never succeeded in gaining parliamentary representation. The government interned many prominent members of the BUF during the war, unless they act as an enemy fifth column inside England. Mosley was initially moved to Brixton prison, but eventually upgraded to the nicer Holloway prison when he got sick, out of Winston Churchill's desire

to that he not die and become a martyr, which may be reasonable. I don't know. He had a lot going on of the things I'll criticize Churchill about, whatever. Yeah, this one. Yeah. I get it. I get that.

After the war, Mosley attempted to rebrand himself as a normal conservative politician. He formed the union movement and ran for parliament again in 1959, right after the Notting Hill race riots. According to the Telegraph, quote, his campaign called for forced repatriation of Caribbean immigrants and a prohibition on mixed marriage. What?

What? He's just a Nazi in a slightly more advanced age. He never again succeeded in gaining significant political standing. When he died in 1980, he left behind a legacy of hatred and bigotry that persists in the UK to this day. The organization Britain First was founded in 2011

by former members of the British National Party. It campaigns against multiculturalism with Christian patrols of Muslim neighborhoods in mosques. Its name was, of course, spawned by that rally held by Oswald Mosley in 1939. In 2017, Britain First campaigners edited together a false video purporting to show a Muslim man attacking a woman on crutches.

They tweeted this video out, and it was retweeted by President Donald Trump. When President Donald Trump was criticized for this, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, whether it's a real video, the threat is real. In March 2019, a piece of shit shot and killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He published a manifesto online and noted

Sir Oswald Mosley as his number one ideological influence. Obviously, quite a lot of what he wrote in that manifesto was calculated nonsense, but not this. Over and over again throughout the manifesto, the shooter expressed clear Mosleyite views. He believed white countries should be completely independent, both economically and in terms of their population. They should be cut off from immigration

from the rest of the world. His desire was for the white world to remain in a state of autarky and an end to multiculturalism. And so, more than 80 years after the Battle of Cable Street, the ideals of Oswald Mosley live on. As they do. Dun, dun, dun.

Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. Nothing changes. Nothing changes. Everything happens again. But sometimes you can trip some horse cops with marbles. Sometimes you can trip some horse cops with marbles. Why haven't we been using that in our demonstrations?

It's just like, and you see them under the carriage waiting. They're all huddled there. And they got their marbles ready. It's great. I mean, we don't need to have them on horses to trip them up on marbles. I could trip up some Nazis with marbles, no problem. Yeah.

We need to invest in Big Marble. One of the first things I thought of was that video that he retweeted. Yeah. It's like, oh yeah, Britain First. Britain First. Fake Muslim video. Yeah, that's him literally retweeting propaganda made

by a group inspired by and descended by Oswald Mosley. Yeah, it's really pretty cool. I was going to say bad, but yeah, it's pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty smart and cool. It's smart and cool and good.

I forgot to mention good, the good part. Great stuff. We really don't learn shit. No, we don't. I had an argument with my mother in the immediate wake of that attack where we were talking about the horrible murders that had been committed. And she expressed her belief that the United States should just

pull all of its soldiers back from all of the other places in the world they are and basically just kind of wall itself off from the world. And you could call it a state of autarky. Yeah. Yeah, sort of like cut yourself off. Sort of like isolate, protect, and yeah. Mosley suggested.

America First type thing. Interesting, I've seen a lot of people arguing that maybe he's like a monster who did terrible things, but maybe the reasons he did it weren't wrong. Maybe we should consider doing what he suggests to avoid more terrorist violence like that, sort of like capitulating to terrorists kind of. Yeah, give them what they want.

Do they stop? That's what we always say about terrorists. We negotiate with them. We negotiate with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And give them what they want. The first thing we do with the terrorists is we negotiate with them. I remember that from the documentary Air Force One

in the late 1990s. I also have seen that documentary. I do think it's, I want to note, to get about a little slightly back on topic, I think it's interesting and terrible that when this happened, the shooting happened, you like, I remember one of the first things you sent to me was I was literally just writing about Mosley.

I started writing this like four days before the shooting. Right, like, I remember, because we were on a podcast about George Lincoln Rockwell. Right, about Rockwell and all that kind of stuff. And then, and literally you said, like, I wouldn't be surprised if by the time this is over, something like this happens. And then like, I think a day or no, that night.

Was it that night? It was the night of the third episode. Okay, it was the night of the third episode. It did. And you were in the middle of writing about the person that inspired him. Wasn't that book mentioned in the manifesto too? Which one?

Was it the Truman, what was it called? I can't think. The Turner Diaries. Oh, it wasn't mentioned, but it was a clear inspiration. It's, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he had, you know, the 14 words written on his rifle, which we traced the descent of that back to Rockwell. Right, it's all there.

And in some cases, in black and white, my point being that everyone should follow and protect Robert Evans at all costs. Well, you know, I want to stay more on point, but I have this beautiful image in my head of President Harrison Ford rolling up in the presidential limo. And there's just a plume of Potsmo rolling out of it,

and then Shia LaBeouf staggers out. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, oh, Harrison Ford and his sweatpants just sort of saunters up to the Arlington Cemetery. Wiping some chocolate off his shirt. We only dreams to live for, and that is as good of a one as any. That's my dream.

He's got some coffee made dribbling down his shirt. Absolutely, as do I. Robert, do you have anything to plug? I have Twitter at IWriteOK.com. Yes, yes, indeed. IWriteOK.com. I have the website for this podcast is BehindTheBastards.com.

You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at at Bastards Pod. You can buy a shirt behind the Bastards, T-Public. You can buy a shirt or food and water and medical supplies to prepare for the impending site collapse. I have a podcast that's not this one coming out soon that is called It Can't Happen Here, or It Could Happen Here, one of the ones. Google them both, you'll find different things.

Something or other happened here. It's about what happens if Civil War in America, but a second one. It'll be fun. For all you fish opposites out there. For all you fish opposites out there. It'll be out by the time this episode drops, unless they put this episode up tomorrow

against my express wishes and desires. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. Sophie. Yeah, Sophie. She's the audio engineer today. Yes. She does not know how to engineer audio,

so if anyone's guess as to whether or not this episode will ever drop. Can you hear this? Can anyone hear? Tommy, can you hear it? OK, we really need to just end the episode. It's done. It's done.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the US and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler.

Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price?

Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian-trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space?

Well, I ought to know, because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.