It Could Happen Here - CZM Rewind: CZM Book Club: CZM Book Club Presents: The Revolutionary Fables of Ricardo Flores Magón
Episode Date: June 21, 2026Margaret reads you several short stories written by the one of the ideological leaders of the Mexican Revolution Original Air Date: 6.1.2025See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed.
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All Zone Media.
Book Club.
Book Club.
Rerun.
Book Club.
It doesn't work in the chant.
I'm so sorry.
But I am your host, Margaret Kiljoy.
and this week, well, actually, Cool Zone Media had off for the most part.
And so we're running an episode that we've run before.
And in particular, well, I'm just letting you know that.
I'm going to introduce the story again in a second because it's, you know, you'll hear me do it.
Book club, book club, book club.
Hello!
And welcome to the Cool Zone Media Book Club.
The only book club where you don't have to do the reading is I do it for you.
you. I'm your host, Marker Kiljoy, and every week I bring you kind of whatever I want. It rules. I love my job.
But specifically, what I usually want to bring you is fiction, because I also bring you history on a different
podcast, but you already knew that. And I want to bring you fiction, and this time it's fiction about history.
Because, well, we just ran reruns of the episodes about the Maganistas and about the precursors to the Mexican Revolution.
And I thought to myself, well, that guy Ricardo Flores Magan, he wrote some fiction.
And I thought to myself, I should read you that fiction.
And so that's what we're going to do this week and possibly next week.
There's a lot of this stuff.
And it's pretty interesting.
It's interesting both as like, this is an old-timey style of radical fiction.
And it's worth understanding how people conveyed their ideas through fiction.
And they're also really entertaining stories, although very different from how I would write
radical fiction today. But I guess I'll get into some of those differences afterwards when we talk
about the whole thing that we just read. I'm using the royal wee. I didn't mean to. I'm using
the proletarian we. That's probably what McGahn would have said. And if you're thinking to yourself,
but Margaret, I don't want to listen to your two-part long episode of
about the Maganistas before I enjoy Kools'en Media Book Club.
I have to say to you, that's reasonable.
The really short version of it is that around the turn of the century,
the previous turn of the century, the early 1900s,
there was this group in Mexico called the Liberal Party of Mexico.
And because political labels are kind of meaningless,
they're the anarchist group.
And specifically, they advocate for a...
non-hierarchical anti-capitalist society, and a lot of them come from indigenous backgrounds and are
fighting for sort of more traditional ways of doing things. And I like them. They often get called
the Maganistas after the Magan brothers, but especially after Ricardo Flores Magan. And the kind of
biggest thing that they did is that they led an uprising where they tried to make the social revolution
across Mexico, mostly in 1911.
That's why it's called the Maginista Rebellion of 1911.
So that failed partly because the actual liberal,
like centrist groups that they were working with
in order to have a revolution turned on them and killed them,
which is a thing that happens a lot in history,
is that radicals start getting shit done,
and centrists come in late and are like,
I'm in charge now,
and then start shooting the people who got them there.
It's fun.
History's fun.
So after that, Ricardo Floresma gone,
kind of, he moved around a bunch,
and I don't have his biography in front of me,
but I should, but I don't.
He moved around a bunch,
and he kind of just started writing fiction.
Well, he did a lot of things, too,
in theater and all these other things.
But he continued to publish in the newspaper
called Regeneration,
which was the anarchist paper,
for the Liberal Party of Mexico.
And so in that, he wrote a bunch of different fiction pieces,
and that's what I'm going to read to you.
This first one is from 1915,
and it is called The Frock Coat and the Blouse.
A lot of these are little parables about objects,
and they're all really heavy-handed class metaphors,
and I love them so much, and I maybe shouldn't,
because they're so heavy-handed, but I find them entertaining.
The frock coat and the blouse.
The aristocratic frock coat and the plebeian blouse were in the same trash heap.
What an abomination! What humiliation! said the frockcoat, gazing obliquely at its neighbor,
I am next to a blouse? A gust of wind blew one of the humble blouse's arms at top the arrogant frock coat,
as if it intended to reconcile those who were seated equally, to harmonize by means of a fraternal,
embrace, the two garments that were situated equally, yet which are normally found so distant from
each other in the social life of humans.
Horror, shrieked the frock coat. Your contact assassinates me, filthy rag. Truly, your audacity
is outrageous. How dare you touch me? We are not equal. I am the frock coat, the noble
garment that shelters and gives distinction to gentlemen. I am the stylish garment. I am the stylish garment.
that only comes into contact with decent people.
I am the vestment of the banker and the professional,
the legislator, the judge, the industrialist, and the merchant.
I live in the world of business and talent.
I am the garment of the rich, do you understand?
Another gust of wind removed the blouse's arm from the frock coat.
As if it were indignant,
regretting that it had sheltered that pretentious rag
for a few sentimental, fraternal instance,
and attempting to contain its rage,
the blouse said,
You fill me with pity, you haughty rag,
sheath of vain and wicked beings.
You should be ashamed for having covered white-gloved scoundrels.
I would have died of horror
if I had felt under me the dreadful palpitation of a judge's heart.
I would feel defiled covering the punch of the merchant or the banker.
I am the garment of the poor.
Under me pulsates the generous heart of the worker,
of the herdsman who shaved from the sheep the primary material of which you are composed.
Of the weaver who converted it into cloth,
of the tailor who made it a frock coat.
I am the covering of useful beings, hardworking and noble.
I do not visit palaces.
Rather, I live in the workshop.
I frequent the mine.
I am present in the factory.
I go to the fields.
I am always found in the places where riches are produced.
You do not find me in gilded salons, nor in luxurious boudoirs,
where the gold made by the sweat of the poor is squandered,
or where the slavery of the disinherited is agreed upon.
Rather, I will be discovered in the meetings of freedom fighters,
where the prophetic word of the people's orator announces the advent of a new society.
I will be seen in the bosom of the anarchist group,
inside which good people prepare to transform society.
And while you, conceited coat, wallow in bacchanioles and orgies,
I clothe myself with glory in the trench or in the barricade dueling the military officer,
or in the riot during the struggle for liberty and justice.
The moment has come when you and I must fight a duel to the death.
You represent tyranny. I am protest.
Face to face, we are the oppressor and the rebel.
The torturer and the victim.
In the balance of civilization and progress,
I weigh more than you,
because I am the force behind everything.
I move the machines.
I dig the tunnels.
I lay the tracks.
I make the revolution.
I drive the world.
A ragman put an end to the conflict,
put in the garments in different sacks,
which he carried uphill to his hovel.
That's the end of the first one.
them are going to be like super earnest, right? But I feel like there's a little bit of self-awareness
of exactly what's going on when you've got like, and then someone came and threw them both into
the trash. The next story is called the rifle. I serve two factions, the faction that oppresses
and the faction that liberates. I do not have preferences. With the same fury, with the same crack,
I fire the bullet that snatches life away from the soldier of liberty or the henchmen of tyranny.
Workers made me to kill workers.
I am the rifle, the killer of freedom when I serve those on top,
the weapon of emancipation when I serve those below.
Without me, there would not be men who say, I am more than you.
And without me, there would be not slaves who cry, down with tyranny.
The tyrant calls me, butcher.
of institutions. The free man caresses me tenderly and calls me
instrument of redemption. I am the same thing and yet nevertheless
I serve to oppress as well as to liberate. I am at the same time
assassin and vindicator depending on the hands that wield me. I can also tell in whose
hands I am. Do these hands tremble? There can be no doubt they are the hands of a
military officer. Is it a firm pulse?
I say without vacillating, these are the hands of a liberator.
I do not need to hear cries to know which faction is using me.
It is enough for me to hear the chattering of teeth
to know that I am in the hands of oppressors.
Evil is cowardly, good is valorous.
When the officer supports my chamber in his bosom
to make me vomit out the death nestled in my cartridge,
I feel his heart leap with violence.
It is because he is conscious,
of his crime. He does not need to know who he will kill. He has been ordered, fire. And there goes
the shot that will perhaps venture through the heart of his father, his brother, or his child,
through someone who has been summoned by the honorable cry, revolution. I will exist on this
earth as long as there is a stupid humanity that insists on dividing itself into two classes,
the rich and the poor, those who consume and those who suffer.
When the last capitalist disappears and the shadow of authority dissipates,
I will disappear in my turn,
consecrating my materials to the construction of plows,
and the thousand instruments which men transformed into brothers will wield with enthusiasm.
That's the end of that story.
But do you know what else will exist on this earth as long as there is a stupid humanity
that insists on dividing itself into two classes, the rich and poor,
those who consume and those who suffer?
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June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Chams podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee.
Do you realize how legendary you are?
I appreciate that.
I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got, like, so much more to do.
Like, Prince, he dropped like 30 albums.
We dropped like five right now.
That's the rate we got to be going.
Yep, that's a good attitude.
You also hear stories from industry legends.
and hip-hop pioneers like Fab Five Freddy.
I directed when the Nas' early videos.
Which one?
One love.
Wow.
I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge.
His moms were still up in that apartment.
Nause was just beginning to take off.
His pops used to live near me in Harlem.
His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff,
and he made a young prodigy.
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I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things.
I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain.
In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers
to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats.
I also bring a bit of advice into the mix
so we too can better understand
how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges.
Do you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to pull out what you already have inside.
We're coming into this world,
fighting for our lives.
All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside.
We're there to support and celebrate each other.
And that's not like your story versus my story.
You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain.
You're not just going to put your mind over it.
Yep, yep, exactly.
And if I can't walk up and over it,
I'm going to go through it.
Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back.
Okay, the next story is called The Two Penss.
Behind the window of a display case, the gold pen and the steel pen waited for someone to buy them.
The gold pen rested indolently in a rich jewel case that increased its glamour.
The steel pen confirmed its modesty.
at the base of a cardboard casket.
Pedestrians, poor and rich, old and young,
passed again and again by the display case,
casting greedy glances towards the gold pen.
Nobody looked at the steel one.
The sun crashed its rays upon the gold pen,
which gleamed with sparkles like glowing embers in its chenil cushion.
But it was unable to impress even a dim tone of beauty
upon the dark proletarian pen.
Regarding its poor red,
brother with pity, the rich pen said,
Poor mangy thing,
learn to be admired.
Acustomed to great struggles for the highest ideals,
the proletarian pen deemed it unworthy to answer that foolishness.
Emboldened by the silence of the humble pen, the bourgeois pen said,
Why don't you try, you squalid thing, to look like me, to be a gold pen?
And it shone in its chenil like a star in the satin of the sky.
The proletarian pen could not repress a smile,
which angered the bourgeois pen,
making it break out in nonsense like this.
Your smile is the smile of impotence.
It fills me with pity.
Could you be used like I am
to sign banknotes for millions and millions of dollars?
I occupy a place of honor
in mahogany and cedar writing desks.
In palaces,
the elegant writer signs his articles with me.
Using me, the minister,
authorizes important documents for the entire nation. The president endorses his decrees with a
signature which only I shall delineate. War is not declared unless an august hand takes me in its
fingers and has me fix its sovereign signature on paper. Peace cannot be agreed upon with mangy steel
pens. They must be golden. With a gold pen, the young aristocrat composes his verses of
love to the genteel lady.
Now, patience has its limits
for a steel pen. Thus,
the modest pen from the base of its cardboard
casket, raised its clear, sincere voice, and,
as it was sincere, it was also handsome
and grand. To say,
above all things, the pen is grand
because it makes it possible for a great
mind to free itself from the prison of its
skull, to go out and
shake other minds that sleep cage
in other skulls. It makes them welcome the great mind with hospitality, granting its entrance.
Doors should be opened and accommodation should be furnished for all who bring light, hope,
valor. But you, Vane Pen, you are the disgrace of our species. I would rather break my tips
than lend myself to sketching the signature that endorses a bank order for thousands of millions of
dollars. An order like this is the result of a pact made between bandits. My place is not on a
mahogany writing desk. I prefer a pine table, upon which the people's scribe outlines the robust
phrases that announce to the world an era of liberty and justice. I am the pen of the people, and like
them, I am strong and sincere. The minister does not touch me to underwrite documents that sanction
exploitation and tyranny. Neither does the president grasp me to authorize laws that command slavery
and the torments of the humble, nor to humiliating peace treaties. But when the thinker takes me
between his creative fingers, when the poet and the sage touches me with his fecund anarchist hands,
making me engrave and blank notebooks his bright meditations, like the idea of class struggle,
I feel my molecules tremble with emotion, an emotion that is pure, strong, sound.
This is my pleasure because, as I am humble, I move in the world of talent, sincerity, and honor.
My power is immense, my influence is gigantic.
When the proletarian writer takes me in his hands, the tyrant trembles, the priest is terrified, the capitalist turns pale.
But Liberty smiles with the smile of the dawn.
the downtrodden dream of a better world, and the valiant hand nervously caresses the firearm
of vengeance and redemption. In my cardboard casket, I feel grand and noble. As humble as I may seem to you,
I stir people. I knock down thrones. I upset cathedrals. I humble gods. I am light for the darkness
of the mind. I am the bugle that calls the humble to arms and converts them to magnificence. I resound for
the revolutionary militia, gathering the brave in the trench and summoning the men to the barricades.
You serve to endorse the decrees of the tyrant, I to endorse the proclamations of the rebel.
You oppress, I liberate.
The crash of a car motor, which broke through the front of the shop, prevented the rest of
the proletarian pen's engaging discourse from being heard.
But you know what?
Even the crash of a car motor can't cut through.
Because now cars have radios inside that allow you to listen to.
It's advertisements like these.
Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.
Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people.
Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges.
I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer.
and that was more difficult.
There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression.
I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety.
Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Chams podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee.
Do you realize how legendary you are?
I appreciate that.
I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got like so much more to do.
Like Prince, he dropped like 30 albums.
We job like five right now.
That's the rate we got to be going.
Yep, that's a good attitude.
You also hear stories from industry legends and hip-hop pioneers like Fab Five Freddy.
I directed when the Nas' early videos.
Which one?
One love.
Wow.
Yes.
I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge.
His moms were still up in that apartment.
Nas was just beginning to take off.
His pops used to live near me in Harlem.
His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff.
He made a young prodigy.
No matter the era,
Drink Chams brings you the biggest names
and the most unfiltered conversations.
Listen to Drink Chams from the Black Effect Podcast Network
on the IHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things.
I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain.
In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers
to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences
that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats.
I also bring a bit of advice into the mix
so we too can better understand
how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges.
Do you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to pull out what you already have inside.
We're coming into this world fighting for our lives.
All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside.
We're there to support and celebrate each other.
And that's not like your story versus my story.
you're going to walk up and over that dang mountain.
You're not just going to put your mind over it.
Yep, yep, exactly.
And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it.
Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Happy Pride from the Outspoken Podcast Network.
All month long and all year round, we're celebrating being loud, proud, and always original.
It's me, Brandon Kyle Goodman, host of the podcast, Tell Me Something Messy.
Check out my show for Unfoful.
takes on dating, relationships, and adulting.
The more you get comfortable with someone, the more their real self comes out, they're going to be gross.
What's the grossest thing about a man?
Burping. Shut it down.
Listen to High Key for the best pop culture takes, and there are no girls on the internet for all your tech news.
For your favorite celebrity key cues, check out outlaws with T.S. Madison.
Wait, so Luke was the son of Vader.
And Vader was turned by Rupal?
Yeah, well, somebody's heard of some old, old witch.
Learn to love yourself unapologetically with BFF, Black Fat Fem,
and start your day with intention with waking up with Ryan coming in July.
Celebrate Pride with the outspoken network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcast.
Open your free IHeart Radio app, search Pride, and listen now.
And we're back.
Okay, I have one more story for you today.
And this one, this one makes me kind of sad.
And it's interesting.
We'll talk about it afterwards.
It's from 1910.
It's from immediately before the Maginista uprising.
It's called two revolutionaries.
The old revolutionary and the modern revolutionary
meet each other one afternoon marching in different directions.
The sun glowed like an ember above the distant mountain range.
The king of the day was sinking.
It sunk down irrevocably.
As if it were conscious of its defeat by the evening.
It reddened with anger and cast upon the earth and the sky, its most handsome lights.
The two revolutionaries regarded each other face to face.
The old one, ashen, disheveled, his unpolished visage, like a rag tossed into a washbasket.
Crossed here and there by ugly scars, his bones insinuating the edges of his body underneath his shabby garb.
The modern one, erect, filled with life, his face luminous with the pre-sentiment of glory.
He was clothed in rags as well, but he carried them with pride,
as if they were the flag of the disinherited,
the symbol of a common meditation,
the password of a humble people elevated by the zeal for a great idea.
Where are you going? asked the old man.
I am going to fight for my ideals, said the modern one.
And you, where are you going? he asked in his turn.
The old man coughed and spat angrily upon the earth.
He cast a glance at the sun, whose anger he also felt in this moment, and said,
I am not going.
I am now coming back home.
What happened?
I am disillusioned, said the old man.
You are not going to a revolution.
I also went to the war, and you see how I now return.
Sad, old, damaged in body and spirit.
The modern revolutionary cast a glance that encompassed space.
his brow was splendid.
A great hope rose up from the depths of his being
and gazed out through his face.
He asked the old man,
Did you know what you were fighting for?
Yes, a wicked man was dominating the country.
We poor people were suffering from the tyranny of the government
and from the tyranny of people with money.
Our oldest children were locked up in jail.
The families, abandoned, prostituted themselves,
or panhandled to be able to live.
No one could look the lowest policeman in the face.
The least compliment was considered as an act of rebellion.
One day a noble man said to us poor people,
fellow citizens, in order to put an end to the present state of things,
we must have a change in the government.
The men who are in power are thieves, assassins, and oppressors.
Let us eliminate those in power.
Elect me, president, and everything will change.
This is what the noble man said.
after this he gave us firearms and sent us off to fight.
We triumphed.
The wicked oppressors were dead.
We elected the man who gave us the weapons,
making him president while we went to work.
After our triumph, we continued working exactly like before,
like mules and not like men.
Our family has continued suffering from need.
Our oldest sons kept on being taken to jail.
The taxes kept on being collected with precision by the new government,
and rather than decreasing they grew larger.
We had to abandon the products of our labor
to the hands of our masters.
Anytime we wanted to declare a strike,
they killed us in the most cowardly fashion.
Now you see, I knew what we were fighting for.
The rulers were bad,
and we were precisely exchanging them for good ones.
And now you see how those who said that they were going to be good
turned out to be just as bad as the ones we dethroned.
Do not go to the war.
Do not go. You are going to risk your life merely to exalt a new master.
So spoke the old revolutionary. The sun sank down without recourse, as if a gigantic
claw had dragged it behind the mountain. The modern revolutionary smiled, he retorted.
Comrade, I am going to war, but not like you and those of your era. I am going to war not to
elevate any man to power, but to emancipate my class. With the aid of this rifle, I will force
our masters to loosen their claws and to release what they have robbed from the poor for thousands
of years. You entrusted a man to create your happiness. My comrades and I are going to create
happiness for all by our own efforts. You entrusted notable lawyers and men of science with the task of
making laws. Naturally, they made them in such a way as to benefit themselves. Instead of being the
instrument of liberty, they were the instrument of tyranny and infamy. Your entire error and the error of
those who, like you, have fought, has been this to give powers to an individual or to a group of
individuals surrendering to them the task of making everybody happy. No, my friend, we, the modern
revolutionaries, do not search for helpers nor protectors, nor manufacturers of good fortune.
We are going to conquer liberty and well-being for ourselves.
We are beginning by attacking the root of political tyranny, and that route is called the right of property.
We are going to seize the lands from the hands of our bosses to hand it over to the people.
Oppression is a tree, and the root of this tree is called the right of property.
The trunk, the branches, and the leaves are the policemen, the soldiers, and the officials of all ranks, large and small.
Look here. The old revolutionaries have surrendered the task of chopping down this tree,
every time. They chopped it down, it sprouted, it grew up, and it strengthened. Again, they chopped
it down again, it sprouted, and again it grew up, and again it strengthened. This keeps on happening
because they have not attacked the root of the wicked tree. All have been too frightened to extract
the core and pitch it into the fire. You see, my old friend, you have given your blood for no good
reason. I am disposed to give mine so that it will benefit all my brothers and chains. I
will burn down the tree from its root. Behind the blue mountain, something still blazed. It was the
sun which had finally sunk, perhaps wounded by the gigantic claw, which beckoned it to the abyss,
while the sun became red as if it had been tinted by the blood of the star. The old revolutionary
sighed and said, Like the sun, I also am setting, and I will disappear into the shadows.
The modern revolutionary
continued to the place
where his brothers were fighting
for the new ideals.
The end.
This story breaks my fucking heart.
Like,
the modern revolutionary is right.
Instead of continuing this,
you know,
old style of revolution
where they replace one master with another,
people need to set out
to get rid of all masters.
They need to,
to, as that great parable says, take the ring of power back to the fires of Mount Doom from
whence it was forged and cast it into those fires.
And this is so fascinating to me because this was written before the uprising where this
kind of happened anyway.
Even though people went out and tried to be this modern revolutionary, they tried to go out and say,
know the problem is property
and the problem,
it's not explicitly said in this particular
piece, but it's like, you know, the problem
is having someone in power like that
and they went out and they did that
but still, not only
was their revolutionary action recuperated
into a new government that was kind of
in many ways, same as the old government, I guess
there was, you know, some things that got better or whatever.
But then they were killed
by the people who came and stole that revolution.
And then this is also written
before the Russian revolutions
and before the Bolsheviks
betrayed the democratic nature of that revolution.
And the reason it's heartbreaking
is that these are the same revolutionary.
You know?
And I don't know what to do with that
because I want us to be this modern revolutionary.
I want us to say we are fighting power,
not for someone new to be in power.
and maybe the answer is we just need more of us doing that.
Or, well, I don't know what the answer is.
If I had the answer, I'd be making podcasts about that
instead of trying to think it all through alongside of you.
And yeah, that's some fiction by Ricardo Flores McGahn
written 100 some years ago.
Before and after, his heart was broken
by the revolution that he helped participate in.
And that's Book Club. I hope you enjoy it. I'll talk to you all soon.
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,
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