1620 was 400 Effin' Years Ago

If April showers bring May flowers, then what do Mayflowers bring?

Four hundred years ago come this fall, an English version of the Spanish caraval swung around the hook end of Cape Cod and dropped anchor.  Its passengers then promptly:
a. had a weird religious service on the boat
b. piled out on shore the next day so they could do some laundry
c. collected a bunch of shellfish, cooked it all up, puked it all out
d. sent a bunch of their guys up-Cape in a crappy little boat called a shallop just to see what they could see.

I only mention this here today because that bunch of fugitives from merrie old England did manage to accomplish a few things, as well as colossally fail at a bunch of other things.  Oh, and they also didn't do a lot of stuff they were supposed to have done.  Oh yeah, and they did some other stuff that nobody ever expected they could do.

Let's get back to that bunch working their way up-Cape from what would later be called Provincetown.  The side of the Cape they were sailing on is called the bayside and has a really weird tidal change.  At high tide, the water goes right up to the shore no problem.  Low tide is another story alltogether.  The water that used to be at the shoreline is now three miles out, with clam flats and tidal pools and absolutely nothing afloat as far as the eye can see.  The Englishmen in the shallop discovered this the hard way when their ratso little boat ran out of water.  They had to get out and drag it as far as they could in the direction of shore.  Once there, they spotted a pair of locals and a dog in the distance, but when they chased after the pair, the locals disappeared.  What would you have done if you saw this lot running after you?

Stop that dog!

Yeah, I would have been so outta there too.

Sometime later, they came across a hill where there had clearly been some digging going on rather recently, so they stuck their own spades in and uncovered a bigass iron kettle filled with some kind of dried grain that nobody had ever seen before, but were pretty sure would make tasty tortillas, so they stole it.  Still later, they discovered a gravesite (they dug it up of course, cuz snacks?) containing a kid, a woman and a REALLY HUGE GUY who were all unfortunately dead and snackless.  What followed can only be described as uncharacteristic good sense: they reburied the stiffs.

Camping on Cape Cod in the fall is kind of nice.  The greenheaded flies, gnats, mosqitos and horseflies are all beginning to mellow, the tourists have mostly gone, and the nights are crisp and cool.  Or cold.  And without moonlight or starlight, long before Thomas Edison or ever a dependable whale oil supply, it's dark.  Our fugitive corn-stealing, grave-defiling Englishmen-by-way-of-Holland did exactly what you'd expect them to do: cut down a dry, dead tree and set fire to it out on the beach.  Now they were
a. warm
b. less afraid
c. visible TO EVERYONE for MILES.

A bunch of those everyones thought it'd be fun to scare these weirdos back to ol' Blighty, so they got as close to the fire as they could without being seen and yelled their war-cry: "WOAH!  Wo-wo-WOACH!"  After dyeing their shorts brown and yellow, the Englishmen somehow managed to get some sleep before dawn.

Sunrise saw their boat on the way to floating in water, so the Englishmen thought they could scarf down some breakfast of inedible ship's biscuit and dried fish.  Their friends from last night, however, completely pissed-off that their beach was still crawling with illegal immigrants, let fly their war-cries and a flock of arrows.  So many in fact that the English were pinned behind a pile of logs they hadn't burned yet.  And here is where we detour to the arcane world of early 17th century firearms technology so that you can appreciate why and how badly the English were screwed.

Anybody got a s-l-o-o-o-o-w match?  I say, we're jolly-well fornicated now.

English guns at the time were little better than tiny cannons one could carry on one’s shoulder.  That thing that looks like a rope on fire was exactly that: a rope soaked in saltpeter and a little gun powder with one end lit on fire. This had to be brought in contact with the touch-hole, which would then ignite the charge in the gun, which would then fling a huge caliber ball in the direction of whichever way it was pointed.  Unless the rope-on-fire went out -or was across the beach by the boat -in the complete open.  Oh sure, they had their guns, but not the slow-matches that made the guns work.  Then four amazing things happened:

a. one of them sprinted to the boat, arrows whizzing around his ears, grabbed the slow-matches and sprinted back to cover

b. someone else grabbed a burning log from the fire and lit all the slow matches
c. the blast from the guns frightened the locals away
d. the locals missed EVERYBODY.

Oh, and the place this all happened?  It's now called First Encounter Beach in the town of Eastham --a place where I grew up.

A couple of more miserable, cold nights and raw, stinging salty spray days later, the crew were in high spirits because their miserable boat was headed straight for rocky cliffs later called Manomhet cliffs, but I'm pretty sure were first named the "OhmyfuckingGODwe'reallgonnaDIE!" cliffs.  The boat's rudder was cracked, so the only thing they could do in order to steer the damn thing was to all row on one side of the boat, which of course made the boat want to capsize even more than it usually did.  Between the rowing, the cracked rudder, howling wind and angry sea, another amazing thing happened: they somehow slid by the cliffs and lots of dangerous partly submerged rocks, and were blown right onto the sandy beach surrounding an island they failed to notice before.  Exhausted, they all piled out of the boat, dragged it a bit further onshore, tossed the keys to the boat valet and went to sleep in the gathering gloom.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, so the English awoke, had a crap off the side of a log, and took a look around.  What they saw was a barrier beach further offshore, and a green, invitingly cleared field next to the mainland shore close by, with a fresh water stream running through it.  After taking some soundings to see if the harbor was deep enough for the Mayflower, they all tramped around on the shore for a bit, had a drink from the stream, noted the abandoned native wetus and the exposed, bleached bones, and concluded it would make a dandy place to live.  So they all piled back into the shallop and made their way back across the bay to where they had left the rest of their friends.

Sometime during all this exploring and larceny, their leaders realized they had missed their landing goal of the mouth of the Hudson River.  This minor navigational error had rather drastic consequences: it made the entire enterprise they had planned legally NULL AND VOID.  The practical implication of this was that anybody who was just the slightest bit miffed could quite legally say, "Bugger-off you tossers!" and go start up their own colony, go back to England, sell the whole shebang to France, Spain or trade it all for a handful of magic-effing-beans it they wanted to, and face no legal punishment whatsoever.  To fix this, they got all the men together and drew up a document of self-government history has called the Mayflower Compact.  Basically, it said they'd form themselves into something called a "body politic" and be governed by English laws, or if there wasn't just the right English law available, then they'd make new ones, and to otherwise not do a whole Lord of the Flies-thing on each other.

I was really hoping for a Mayflower coupe instead of a compact.

The next order of business was to convince the ship to stick around until spring, because there weren't any houses, package stores, supermarkets, dry cleaners or any decent pizza yet.  There are no reliable historical sources to explain the decision of Sailing Master Christopher Jones to stick around, but I theorize the foolowing:
a. winter weather crossing the Atlantic is always super shitty
b. Jones had become impressed by the faith of his Pilgrim passengers and wanted to help them
c. Pilgrim women were totally hot

YEAH we are, bitchezzz!

The second thing they needed to do was to build some houses, because --and not to quote George R. R. Martin, but --winter was coming, and not some pussy English winter, but a totally badass Massachew-FuckYou-setts winter, with snow up to your buttholes, wind, rain, hail, freeing rain, frozen bird carcasses falling out of the sky, ocean temperatures approaching absolute zero and frost on the pumpkin.  The first house they built was the Common House.  This was a place big enough for about twenty people, so big enough for workers to rest and sleep in while they built the other houses.  Later on, the Common House was changed into the Meetinghouse where they had their all frickin' day long religious meetings on Sunday.

The other houses were small affairs: one room, drafty fireplace, thatched roof, dirt floor, tiny windors covered by oily paper, maybe a sleeping loft so that the residents didn't have to sleep with their animals at night.  But at least they had four walls and a roof, because shit was about to get real.

As the English were at work one fine day, a large and mostly naked Indian strode into their midst, seemed to enjoy the commotion he was causing, and said, "Hello Englishmen!" --in English, no less!  He explained in broken English and rudimentary sign language was that his name was Samoset and he was here at the request of the Sachem Massasoit, the local chief whose land the English were presently squatting on.  He said that someone who knew English really well would visit soon, along with the Big Chief himself.  After looking around a bit and taking a leak on what would later become a street, Samoset left, leaving the Pilgrims all a-twitter.  Now they had to be diplomats --or failing that, soldiers --or failing that, fertilizer.

The appointed day came.  Massasoit, his chief powwows and warriors showed up.  They were greeted by all the Pilgrim men who were strong enough to bear arms, their field drummer and a bugler, who escorted all and sundry to the Common House for a sit-down.  There, the English learned that:
a. the place they were in was called Pautuxett
b. everyone who used to live there died of a horrible plague

c. the Wampanoags thought the English were INSANE for trying to settle Pautuxett because of (b)
d. the English were basically surrounded by a bunch of powerful tribes, any one of whom could seriously kick their asses.

Massasoit learned a couple of things as well:
a. English guns made a lot of smoke and noise
b. English food was really bland
c. Pilgrim women were totally hot --see above
d. the English had the plague stored in barrels under the floor boards of the Common House
-this last bit was a little exageration by their interpreter, Squanto, which probably gave rise to the expression, "You don't know Squanto."

The meeting left with the two sides promising to be friends, or at least not attack each other.  To prove his benevolence, Massasoit left said Squanto with the English to teach them tricks on how to survive.  He taught them to plant corn, beans and squash alltogether over a hill of dead herring, because hey, herring flavored corn.  He also told them which mushrooms were ok, which ones could be used to poison people you didn't like, and which ones you could dry, smoke, and see not just the Christian God, but any other frickin' deity they wanted to talk to and hang out with.  And finally, Squanto told them that Massasoit was legit powerful (he was) and could probably fly (he couldn't).

"...and rabbits can be used as high explosives."

The  Next thing the now officially greeted English had to do was to not die.  This was harder than it sounds, because not only was there no package stores, supermarkets, dry cleaners or any decent pizza yet; there also was no CVS's, Walgreens or Mom 'n Pop's Pharmacies either.  And these were sorely needed, because just about everyone got sick with something called the "bloody fluxe," which consisted of --and I am SO not making this up --watery, evil smelling explosive, bloody and projectile diarrhea.  The Indian word for this malady was "flaming poop" and it caused them mild discomfort and mild amusement, but to the English, it was deadly.  Half of the original bunch that came over died from this.  That's right- America's plantation devoted to religious freedom almost shat itself to death.

The reason flaming poop hit the English so hard was because they were eating a lot of stuff that they had never eaten before.  And they were surrounded by germs that they had no immunity to.  And they weren't WASHING their F@#KING HANDS like they SHOULD HAVE!  Luckily, they hit on a clever strategem to convince their Indian neighbors they were all a-ok.  They burried all the dead people late at night and raked over the mass grave where they did it so the Indians wouldn't know how many had died.  Cool plan, except for the last poor shlub left.

Come spring, everyone who survived was happy because they were alive; the sailors were happy because they were going home; the Indians were happy because they could move out of their winter forest digs and move to their summer beach camps where they could swim, fish, go clamming, catch lobsters, paddle around the lake and bay in their canoes, do art projects, sing songs, build campfires and make life-long friends.  The only person who wasn't happy was a Mrs. Billington, and this was because her son had been missing and nobody knew where the brat had wandered off to.  Now I bet you can guess what happened- he had by now passed through a bear's lower digestive tract.  However, the truth was that Billington Jr. had been found by the Manomets, who passed them to the bunch who lived in Cummaquid, who passed him to the Nausett, who wouldn't give him up until the Nausett sachem and the Pilgrim elders had a meeting.

Into the shallop again, back around the inside arm of Cape Cod, and tramp-tramp overland to about where the Orleans/Eastham town line is today.  The first person the English met was the Nausett sachem, who was too proud and aloof to say much else besides "Hello."  The next person they met was the clan leader of the people the English had stolen all the seed corn from the year before.  The next person they met was a woman who cried, screamed at and made armpit-farting noises at English because her husband and son had been kidnapped by an English or French ship.  To all of this, Governor William Bradford said,
a. Hello
b. sorry about that- we'll give it back to you with interest
c. we didn't do that, but we're sorry about that too.

The next person the English met was the Billington Brat himself.  He had had, by this time, an entire spring and most of a summer of playing Indian with real Indians!  He had a cool buckskin shirt, a seashell necklace, a bunch of flowers in his hair put there by his very first girlfriend, and a lot of other cool Indian stuff.  But the best part?  After their early bad start, the Pilgrims and the Nausetts were back on good terms with each other.

"Mom! Dad! Can I scalp my little sister?"

The English Pilgrims now found themselves involved in a political situation where they were the newbies.  The tribe that Massasoit was a powerful leader of was called the Wampanoag.  Their chief rivals were the Massachusett and the Naragansett.  The plague that killed everyone in Patuxet and a lot of other Wampanoag villages didn't hit either of these tribes nearly as hard, which is why Massasoit sought out the English at Plymouth as allies.  He also had a personal reason for liking the English- they literally saved his life by helping him to give a shit.

One day, the settlement at Plymouth was disturbed to hear that their friend, Massasoit, was dying.  Governor Bradford dispatched a pair of worthies, Winslow and Brewster, to go see if there was anything to be done.  On entering the village and seeing the preparations for a big funeral, the pair thought that Massasoit was already dead.  Instead they found a very weak and possibly dying Massasoit, shivering under a bearskin and a couple of wives.  Winslow examined the chief's mouth and found it all furry with grodyness, so he cleaned it off with his own hands and gave Massasoit a nip of agua vite (moonshine liquor) to rinse with.  This got the chief feeling better, who related his symptoms which included constipation.  Winslow went outside, gathered a bunch of dandylions and made a "physick" of it and made the chief drink it all, followed by a moonshine chaser.  A half hour passed, then Massasoit got up, ran for the sachem's private poop-tree, and took THE BIGGEST shit ever shat among the Wampanoag.  

"...and it just might save your life."

Long story short, the funeral turned into a complete party, where one of Massasoit's powwows told Winslow and Bradford that a Massachusett warrior who had been talking smack about the Pilgrims was hatching a plan to attack Plymouth and kill or enslave everyone there.  When news of this got back to Plymouth, their only professional soldier, Myles Standish, got a couple of his boys together and went up to Wessagussett, present-day Weymouth, to where the Massachusett had placed a different group of Englishmen into abject slavery, giving them just enough food to keep them alive and working them within an inch of their lives.  

With a cry of "Huzzah!" or "Saint George and My Aunt Fanny" or some such nonsense, all 5' 1" of Myles Standish and the guys he brought with him rushed out, grabbed the offending Massachusett warrior and his pals, killed them all, sawed THE HEAD OFF of the main culpret, popped it in a bag, took it back to Plymouth, and stuck it on a pike.

Now that the message of "Don't Fuck with the Pilgrims or the Wampanoags" was clearly understood, everyone could get on with what they did the best.  The English had loads of English kids, cut down tons of trees, built farms and docks and more and bigger houses, and started getting rich in the livestock trade.  The Indians went back to their hunting, fishing, light agriculture, campfires on the beach, hanging out with their distant relations whenever they came for a visit and once in a while beating the crap out of each other on a very small scale as the offense dictated it.  The English in England chopped the head off of their king, went to war with a bunch of other countries, all turned into Puritans, sent a complete assload of people over to America and settled the East Coast.  Oh sure, Massasoit's Grandson, Metecom, a.k.a. King Philip, tried to chuck all the English into the sea during the 1690's, and the victorious English sold all the Indians who didn't side with them into slavery in the Caribbean, but after that, there weren't hardly any Indian problems in New England.  Because those Indians that were left were pretty much marginalized, pushed to the sides of society and left alone.  Until they built casinos and stuck it back to whitey.  

At this point, you're probably thinking, wow, the Pilgrims were great!  They did all this cool stuff, and nothing could stop them.  Right.  They had some epic fails.  The first of these were keeping the company that sponsored them afloat.  The Merchant Adventurers of Plymouth, England were supposed to be paid back for the rent on the Mayflower, the tools and livestock they were sent over with, and all kinds of other expenses.  When the Mayflower arrived back in England with only rocks

This ship is not the Mayflower on it's return voyage, because it has stuff in it.

in her hold for ballast, that drove their investors into a frenzy.  When the next boat back was filled with just a lot of timber, that was at least something but no way near what the company's debts were.  The boat that had beaver pelts in it was slightly better, but by that time, the company had declared bankruptcy and the Pilgrims were basically off the financial hook.

Another thing the Pilgrims failed at was the same thing that Jamestown had failed at: finding gold or silver.  Ever since the Spanish had sent the first boat loaded with Aztec loot home, the prevailing opinion in Europe was that the Americas were just stuffed full of gold and silver.  This ignored the fact that America's mineral wealth was just like Europe's: scattered and unevenly distributed.  This is why there were no boom towns in New England and lots of them in Colorado.  At least the Pilgrims didn't spend as much time looking for gold as they did in Jamestown.  I guess they were just too busy praying.

These were some things the English called Pilgrims did.  Here are some things they didn't do.  They never "landed" on Plymouth Rock.  Oh sure, there WAS a bigass rock made of Dedham pudding-bowl granite at Patuxet when the English arrived, but they never landed on it- they "landed" in Provincetown.  However, they did use the rock as a landmark.  The whole story got started after a hurricane demolished a dock the Pilgrims had built on or near the rock and the town had planned on building a proper wharf to replace it.  Before they broke up and dragged the rock away to make room for it, Elder Faunce, a 90 year old guy who was a kid when some of the original Pilgrims were still alive, said he wanted to be brought to the rock to see "that place that received the first Christian foot-trod in the New World."  Well, the story made its rounds and probably would have been forgotten except for one Daniel Webster who heard it on one of his duck hunting trips and worked it into one of his speeches in the Senate. Soon after that, tourists started turning up wanting to see Plymouth Rock.  The problem was there was no effing rock to show them, until somebody remembered where the old town dump used to be, and a large fragment of the rock was found.  This was pulled out, dragged down the street and put in Pilgrim Hall where tourists could see it for a nickle a piece.

Surprisingly, no tourists were willing to pay to see the equally astonishing Plymouth Wok

Another thing the Pilgrims didn't do is have the first Thanksgiving.  Or rather they had too many thanksgivings to count.  The Pilgrims were a separate sect of Puritanism called --wait for it--Separatists.  Separatists were kind of like the Jesus Freaks of the 1600's.  They believed that God was everywhere --not just in churches --and anybody could understand scripture --not just priests --and that Bishops, Cardinals and the Pope were exactly the same as garbagemen in God's eyes.  These views meant that all of God's creation were worthy of praise, even normal stuff like eating and drinking.  As such, Puritans were constantly giving thanks to God --for the wind, the rain, flowers, tasty bacon, eel pie, a sunny day --you get the idea.  Thanksgiving as we know it in the USA and Canada have more in common with harvest festivals practiced by farm communities for hundreds of years.  The first Thanksgiving was actually ordered by President Abraham Lincoln in order to either thank God for Union victories, or to take people's mind off the obscene carnage of the Civil War. 

But hey, didn't the Indians and Pilgrims actually get together in 1621 for a feast?  And weren't there games, and shooting demonstrations (arrows and blunderbuss) and wasn't this the first Thanksgiving?  Well, yes, and not really.  Yes, Bradford's On Plymouth Plantation does mention this rather rustic party, but no, it wasn't their first thanksgiving, nor would it be their last.  Incidentally, turkey was most likely not on the menue in 1621.  Goose, venison, succotash, beans, corn, pumpkin, squash, bass, cod, lobster, clams, scalops, blueberry and strawberry dessert with maple sugar, maybe even some kind of alcohol most likely were.  

Four hundred years in the future, I wonder what people will think of the English who settled in southeast Massachusetts, or if those Pilgrims will even be remembered at all.  In my short lifetime, the Pilgrims have gone from being pious pioneers for religious freedom, to dogmatic prudes who denied religious freedom to non-Puritans, to vanguards of the European imperialists yet to dominate North America, to just more old dead white people that a diverse society should ignore.  While our cultural lenses that we see the Pilgrims through are constantly changing, the Pilgrims did what they did for the reasons that made the most sense to them at the time, just as we all do.  When 2420 rolls around, I doubt even this poor blog post will be able to be read on whatever technology they're reading stuff with.  Perhaps only images will be understood then.  In that case, here is what I and my wife look like:

That's her on the left

Who Can It Be Now- This Time?

Next slide please... ok, who is THIS?  -anyone? -Bueller?

Time once again for another fun-filled edition of Who Can It Be Now? -my shameless attempt at getting people out there to follow my blog.  You should all totally want to follow this blog anyway: you'll never get any viruses, see any pop-up ads, or have to fight your way through the comments at the end because... well, no comments ever.

So, just who is this pretty lady?

Want a hint?

She's an American novelist who was born to a rich New York family, was educated in Europe by private tutors, wrote a bunch of wicked important novels that nobody reads these days, and even palled-around with Elanor Roosevelt.

Put your guesses in the comments below, follow this blog, and Happy Black History Month and Happy Pre-Women's History Month -that is, Women's History Month isn't until March, not Happy History Month to pre-Women (pre-ops? zygotes? transvestites?)

The Difference Between Old-Timey Fascists and What We Got Today

Hitler? Mussolini? Franco? Salazar? NONE of them are here?  #$%@!

There are fascists and then there are fascists, just like there are Baptists and then there are Baptists.  You know what I mean- the Baptists with the nice, big, whitewashed churches and friendly congregations of about 100-150 regulars don't have much in common with the Mega-Churches, which in turn have almost nothing in common with the strip-mall storefront "churches," who all look down their noses at the donated-trailer-with-the-misspelled-sign-on-wheels-just-off-County-Road-114a.  Oh sure, they all profess similar beliefs, are all lead by charismatic figures who do their best to support their ministries  by any means possible --my Dad used to call it "fleecing the flock" --but besides that, they differ by class, race, degree of involvement in their respective communities, reach of ministry, etc.

Likewise with fascists.  The tiki torch-carrying Proudboys of today really don't have much in common with the originators of the fascist brand.  And who and when and where were those proto proud boys of old, Ex Prof? -I hear you cry?  Come with me to Europe before, during and after The War To End All Wars, which totally almost was except for the fact that human beings are basically apes who wear clothes and really really reeeeeely like killing each other.  We will meet fashionistas who wear black shirts, fasionistas who wear brown ones, Italians, Austrians, Germans, and may even have a surprise visit from Babu Frik.

He-Heeeey, I Babu-Frik!*

*Babu Frick is a copyrighted character by Disney (who owns every-frik-in thing)

 and has NOTHING whatsoever to do with fascism, past, present, or a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

Umm, ok, let's go to Italy where all this fascist stuff started. In the early to mid 20th century, Italy's Fashista party emerged from an unlikely alliance between the Christian right, corporate elites, and ultra-nationalists. Their message of a "Mutilated Peace" found fertile ground in the hearts of Italian nationalists who were dissatisfied with the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty, particularly with the disposition of the city of Fiume, an absurdly complicated problem which will be the subject of my next 40 pound book.  Out of this morass, a glib journalist and ex-socialist named Benito Mussolini emerged, and fascism was born.

Mussolini had a couple of talents that made him the ideal guy to drive the relatively new country of Italy --only in business since the 1870's --completely red-eyed, mouth-foaming, stiletto-stabbing bat shit crazy.  For one, he was a journalist who followed in the footsteps of Count Camillo Bensi di Cavour and the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, both of whom had a knack for inflaming the hearts of people already awash in nationalistic rhetoric.  What Mussolini brought to the table was fear- specifically, fear of a Bolshevik takeover in Italy.  After all, the Bolsheviks had taken over in Russia after the Great War, followed by a horrendous civil war; Communist parties in the former Turkish Empire, the United Kingdom and the United States had been founded and were proving very popular with their respective proletariat populations; and a Red revolution was expected daily in Wiemar Republic Germany.  So who would keep Italy safe? Mussolini and his Blackshirt followers answered: they would.

That would be the other thing Mussolini brought to the table: Il Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, a.k.a the Blackshirts (guess what color shirts THEY wore), a paramilitary group that included pissed-off retired soldiers, pissed-off unemployed guys, pissed-off guys that like beating other guys up, and one dude named Luigi Verconti who liked cannoli filled with sweet ricotta and thought that Mussolini's March on Rome in March in 1922 was just a bunch of guys on the hunt for better cannoli than could be found at his local pasticceria -which had run out of them anyway --so he just tagged along with them for the next 23 years.  Actually, the March on Rome was the critical confluence of fear, hatred,violence, ultra-nationalism, militarism and blind obedience.  Once it was over, King Vitorio Emanuel III cashired the current prime minister and asked Mussolini and his Fascist party to form a government.  The wolf was now in charge of the sheep.

It's-a me, Benito, back whenna I had-a
hair!  Woo-Hoo!

If you were an average Italian in March of 1922, you might have seen things differently.  You would have been really afraid of the violent strikes that shut down the Fiat automobile plant and saw workers occupy major factories in Rome, Turin and Milan during the so-called Red Two Years (1919-1920).  If you were a practicing Catholic, the prospect of atheistic Communists ruling Italy was especially appalling.  You might also have had a problem with the Versailles Treaty.  Itally did not get nearly as much as France and Britain did, yet they did most of the dying along the Austrian front during the war.  You may have liked the talk of reviving Italy's greatness (remember the Roman Empire?) and you probably would have welcomed those Blackshirts with their long knives as saviors.  Really.

Across the Alps, Germany was desperately trying to come to terms with some rough terms.  Under the Treaties of Versailles, Germany had to give up quite a lot: her overseas colonies, air force, big-ass battleships, most of their army, and- here was the bitter pill- the province of Alsace-Lorraine on the French border.  Ok ok, Germany had gotten this real estate originally from France after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, but hey, most of the people who live there spoke German and wasn't it a part of the Holy Roman (i.e. German) Empire back in the day?  But to the proud Germans, the very worst term in the whole treaty, the part roundly hated by Bavarians, Prussians and Holsteiners alike, had to be the so-called "war guilt" clause.

Article 231 of the Treaty stated:

"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

Any student of history will tell you that history class really sucked.  They'll also tell you that there were a bunch of causes for WWI including three wars in the Balkans, colonial rivalries, pan-Slavism, militarism, socialism, social-Darwinism, antidisestablishmentarianism, and plagiarism (ok maybe not the last two).  The point is that the Allies were total dicks in putting this clause in when they were just as much to blame for WWI as the Central Powers were.  Add this rage to the post-war German zeitgeist of fear, disillusionment, anger and resentment and you've got a toxic social/political cauldron just bubbling away.

...and furthermore, we shall all use Article 231 as bum-wadden for our Scheisses

Into this morass drifts an Austrian national, Adolph Hitler.  Everything about his early career had "Future Loser of the 20th Century" written all over it.  He hated school because he was constantly beaten for breaking the strict rules.  He hated his father for beating him because he broke school rules.  He hated the technical school his father later enrolled Hitler in because he wanted to be an artist.  He hated Vienna because he failed to get into the Arts Institute so he could become a painter.  He hated the menial work he did; hated the flophouses he lived in.  The only things he seemed to like were operas by Richard Wagner (the composer of Die Valkuri, the opera that gave us the immortal expression, "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings")  Lucky for Hitler, WWI was about to give him something else to like, and lots of someones  to hate.

"Laaaaaa...! Nope, not yet! Laaaaaa!"

For some weird reason, Hitler served in the German army during WWI instead of the Austro-Hungarian army -remember he was an Austrian citizen -but Germany let him anyway.  A brief aside here: the Austrians are often called the smartest people in the world because they made Beethoven (German) an Austrian, and Hitler (Austrian) a German.  But I digress.  In the army, Hitler's job was a dispatch runner, carrying orders and official stuff from headquarters to the forward trenches.  He saw action in some pretty hairy battles, was wounded, got awarded a couple of medals,  and by all accounts liked being in the army.  Which is why Germany's defeat hit him pretty hard.  It was about this time that Hitler probably began to believe the "Stab in the Back" conspiracy theory, which ran something like this:

1. Germany is great, so Germany always wins; but
2. Germany lost WWI; so
3. Germany must have been stabbed-in-the-back by
   a. Communists
   b. Jews
   c. degenerates
   d. Jews
   e. Jews

To be fair, lots of people believed this and lots of people were talking about it, and Germany had a long, well entrenched history of hating the Jews ever since the Jews first wandered into Germany probably as slaves or Roman mercenaries or merchants or bakers specializing in bagels, rugelah, challah bread, matzohs, chocolate babka -pardon my drool -so that makes it ok, right?  Nope, hating someone hard and long enough eventually makes you think it's ok to hurt or kill them, so STOP  HATING EVERYBODY RIGHT FRIK-IN NOW!

He-Heeeeyy, I Babu Frik*

*Babu Frik is a copyrighted character from the Star Wars universe which Disney owns (yup, a whole frik-in universe)

 and is in NO WAYat ALL associated with hate against any sentient being(s) in the entire multiverse, 

even the bits that Disney doesn't own -yet.

Still in the army and living in Bavaria after the war, Hitler came across a political party that didn't have any members -it only had a board of directors- called the National Socialist German Worker's Party (the DAP).  Tasked by the army to infiltrate its ranks, Hitler discovered two things: one was the DAP shared his antisemitic beliefs; the other was that he had a way with words.  My Arizona cousin would tell you that Hitler "could talk a buzzard off of an entire Interstate's worth of roadkill."  This was exactly what the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei needed more than anything: members.  After hearing Hitler speechify, the crowds in the Bavarian beer halls where the DAP did most of their recruiting literally fell all over themselves joining up.  The time seemed right for bold and divisive action: The DAP would overthrow the Bavarian state government and... I guess take over the world next?  What could possibly go wrong with such a brilliant plan?  -are you thinking the same think I'm thinking, Pinky?

I think so Brain, but what would
Megan Markle do with so many
pounds of  Gorgonzola? Narf! Poit!

It turns out, everything that could have gone wrong actually did go wrong.  Hitler and his DAP buddies were arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison.  Seems that the Bavarian police were competent enough to notice an armed coup happening in broad daylight, and the state prosecutor agreed to finish his beer and schnitzel after Hitler was locked up, so now Hitler had plenty of free time to write a book, Mein Kampf, wherein he planned in horribly specific detail how to take over the world.  Cue the "Pinky and the Brain" theme music.  

It was also partly now, partly later, that Mussolini and Hitler both begin to actively work out just what it means to be a fascist.  Mind you, lots of other people from lots of other countries had a hand in fleshing-out this new 20th Century abomination, but let's give credit where it is due.  Fascists are, first and foremost, nationalistic, way-way-way too nationalistic in fact.  Not only would they die for their country --they'd kill for it too.  Lots of people.  All people who weren't as ultra-nationalistic as they were.  Or were different, either racially or ethnically.  Fascists were thus really crazy about identifying just who is US and who is THEM.  This is an important distinction, because the US are the masters, and the THEM are the slaves.  In Italy this played out mainly in North and East Africa where Italian armies tightened their grip on Libya and defeated Haile Selassie's less mechanized army in Ethiopia.  

"So what if the Italians have tanks and planes? We've got... wait, what?  I'm out."

German fascism took the US and THEM distinction further, however and added a new category: NOBODY.  This group of people didn't even count as people.  They included Jews, Romani, homosexuals, mentally and physically retarded people.  German fascists held that these were not people in the strict sense- they were corruptions of humanity -and as such should be exterminated less they pollute the so-called pure Nordic Aryan race that German fascists believed were humanity's master race.

Fascists were also expected to do their duty with unquestioning loyalty.  The fascist state, through its supreme leader, is what informs people of what their duty is, and also what punishes people for not doing their duty.  In order to accomplish this task, the fascist state must be able to know what its citizens are doing at all times, and must be able to communicate to its citizens constantly.  It does this by using lots of police, both regular and secret police, and a larger network of domestic spies and informers.  Communication is done on a massive scale and is usually one-way, using print, photographic, cinema, architecture and the arts.  A society that exercises such a great deal of control over its citizens has been termed Totalitarian; however, not all totalitarian societies have fascist governments.  China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union are communist totalitarian countries, whereas Germany, Italy, Portugal and the puppet-states that Nazi Germany created all over Europe were fascist totalitarian states.  

What differentiates the communists from the fascists is macro-economics.  Fascist governments enforce private property rights, even though productive capacity may be called on to serve state ends.  In Germany, Alfred Krupp's vast iron works made all the heavy armaments the fascist state used during WWII, but the iron works themselves stayed in Krupp's hands.  And yes,l Krupp got obscenely rich as a result of all those munitions orders.  In communist USSR, the state owned all means of production and distribution, so no individual factory owners got rich off of Society Red Army tank orders.  But neither did the workers, either- they made just enough to keep them alive and working.  

No bourgeois exploiters of the proletariat were enriched by these lovely weapons.

Now, onto the difference between today's fascists and those of yesteryear.  Today's fascists really like the pageantry and a lot of the rhetoric of mostly German Nazi fascism.  Try as I did, I wasn't able to find much love for Mussolini amongst the 8-chan and dark-web hate group crowd.  What the current crop falls for are all the bogus racial theories and antisemitism.  In the USA, African-Americans and Latino-Americans have been added to the list of sub-humans, as well as practicing Muslims of whatever racial background.  Some groups also hate on Indians (East and Native), Chinese, Mongoloid Asians, and Pacific Islanders.  Extermination isn't as popular a solution, however; contemporary hate groups are down with individual murders, mass deportations and wholesale exclusions.  Thankfully (?) their "Final Solution" features a big-ass wall between the U.S. and Mexico instead of gas chambers.  21st Century fascists also like alpha-dog leaders, which helps to explain the appeal of Donald Trump and the current rogue's gallery of  tin plated dictators around the world.  

There are a number of frightening developments, however.  Remember the alliance between capitalists and fascists in Germany and Italy?  Those industrial capitalists were at their collective wit's end in the 20's-30's with the Great Depression.  Today's capitalists personally hold more wealth than even our friend, Albert Krupp had if you adjust for currency inflation.  These capitalists have enacted laws, bought lawmakers and judges, and even launched their own propaganda blitzkrieg.  In America today, there is an attack underway against legitimate media outlets, an attack lead by the current President.  At the same time, low-level fascist messaging and authoritarian rhetoric is spewed-out on talk-radio and cabel tv's Fox News.  The President's lies and attacks on American democratic institutions are aided and abetted by so-called conservatives and the so-called religious evangelical community. 

"F is for FOX News.  -and for Frickin' Democrats and f*ckin' lying CNN"

HehHEYYY!  I Babu Frik!*

*Babu Frik is a copyrighted character
totally frik-in owned by Disney and
has NOTHING to do with FOX "News"
or Don "The Con" Trump

Just as in Germany and Italy, the U.S. President came to power in an election, with one important difference: he had the advantage of Russian intelligence help.  While there was already a groundswell of support for Trump's brand of authoritarianism, there are doubts as to whether or not he would have been as successful without Russian aid.  There are parallels here to V. I. Lenin getting material help from Germany in 1916-1917 for his return to Russia which ultimately lead to Russia pulling out of the Allied side in WW I.  Although this German success did not end in ultimate German victory, it was a success nonetheless.  And while Trump has not given Russia as free a hand in the world as they would like, he has succeeded in tying up U.S. aid to the Ukraine, a move that resulted in his impeachment.

Trump also has allies in Congress and the Judiciary.  House and Senate Republicans mostly toe the Trump line because they are afraid they'll get tweeted-at and face political backlash at home from FOX News-brainwashed voters.  Trump's judicial support stems from the great number of federal judges he has appointed, all of whom were vetted by the ultra-conservative pressure group, the Heritage Foundation.  And since the Senate, which is Republican controlled at the moment, has the power to confirm judicial appointments, an alarming number of judges within ultra-conservative credentials and authoritarian leanings are in place at a number of levels within the federal judiciary.  This fact alone will influence American civil life for a generation to come.

More puzzling is our fascist dog-whistler's popularity with Evangelical Christian groups.  One would think that a political figure with his documented moral lapses would have no religious support at all.  If one digs a little deeper into these insular, authoritarian-friendly groups, the picture becomes clearer.  Evangel Christians in the U.S. are even more splintered than the Baptists at the beginning of this post, but they have a few core beliefs in common.  The first and foremost is an abiding distrust of the U.S. government, which they see as either in the thrall of zionists, or is at least unfriendly towards their brand of Christianity.  While this is not new --Mormons fought pitched battles against U.S. soldiers in the 19th century --the degree of distrust has broadened and deepened.  Another core belief is in forgiveness.  The way this plays out with Trump is they see a massively flawed figure who needs only to confess his sins, act contrite, and then then, through the grace of God, he will be worthy to lead them.  Fascist dictators are adept at exploiting this simple faith: as long as they parrot religious rhetoric and declare opposition to, say abortion, then he can count on their support.  Evangelicals also feel threatened by the science and education communities- science because it contradicts their literal reading of the Bible, and public education because of their inability to teach the Word.  This is a feeling shared by fascist dictators.  A citizenry of well educated people are difficult to control.  And scientists are just as difficult, because they are really good at seeing through a dictator's lies.  

"And while it IS true I hate educated, sciencey dipshits, I love Liberty U. because it's just a diploma mill for idiots"

Lastly, evangelicals believe in a flaky scenario called the End Times.  We supposedly live in those times right now.  Essentially, it's John of Patmos' scary pop-up Book of Revelations come to life.  I encourage you to read it while smoking weed.  All kinds of strife and turmoil will happen, as well as some crazy A.F. shit straight from the special effects department, all ending in Jesus Christ coming back and ruling (over a vastly depleted human population and a totally destroyed planet Earth) for a thousand years.  And Trump figures into this frickin' nightmare somehow.

Finally, old-timey fascists were all confined to Europe, but today, thanks to the Internet, fascists are spread out all over the world.  The good news is that fascism is still an unpopular political belief- that whole WW II thing.  The bad news is that with the growing rise of authoritarianism in the West, fascists are feeling emboldened to come out of the shadows.  It is beginning to feel more and more like the end of the world just MIGHT be at hand, what with an authoritarian leaders in Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and the United States all having the ability to launch nuclear missiles.  I'm pretty sure that even the neo-fascists of today don't relish the prospect of dying in a hydrogen bomb blast.

I know that I sure don't.  And probably that frikkin guy down there doesn't want to go that way either.

"HehHeyyyy, I Babu Frik!"*

*Babu Frik is etc.  etc.  yadda-yadda
and is definately NOT Jesus the Christ.
Really.  wink-wink