A common thread
It really is, you know
Now listen, Mike. Listen carefully. I'm going to pronounce a few words. They're harmless words. Just a bunch of letters scrambled together. But their meaning is very important. Try to understand what they mean… — Kiss Me Deadly
The following are some tweets that I retweeted over the past 15 months and to which I added the legend “Fascism is an international movement”:
Oh, and reaching back a bit in time, this, of which I was reminded by recent events:
Oh, and one more, ditto:
I could go on, but you get the idea.
1930s Italy - The worldwide depression seems to be waning for some people but for your average Italian farmer trying to feed his family off a couple acres, times are still real hard.
Stuck out in the farthest reaches of the Po River valley , Giovanni lives with his wife snd six kids in a tumbledown shack trying to make a living off of two acres that was farmed out sometime the last century. He's having a bad day. There's been no rain for a month and he's looking to have a miserable harvest. He's at the end of his rope. He's sitting out in the minimal shade from a dead tree. He thinks about praying but that never seems to work. Then he has an idea. He decides to write God a letter.
He addresses it to : The Almighty in Rome. Italian peasants know that anyone important lives in Rome.
The letter is simple, it says:
Dear Almighty - I humbly beseech you, My family and I won't make it through this winter without some help. Could you please send me 500 lira? You're humble servant-Giovanni.
He feels pretty good about this so he spends some his last few lira on a stamp and mails it to Rome.
At the Central Post office in Rome they get the letter. The postmaster looks at it and wonders. It should obviously go to the Vatican but that's all the way across town. He decides to do the carrier a favor and puts it in the mail going to Mussolini, who resides a couple of blocks away. Everyone would agree, he certainly thinks of himself as Almighty.
The letter works its way through the bureaucracy. After a month, mostly because nobody knows what to really do with it, the letter winds up on Mussolini's desk. Mussolini opens it reads it and is quite moved. He writes a little note,
"Thanks for the kind words Hope this helps! Mussolini."
He puts the note ,an autograph picture and 250 lira in an envelope and sends it back to Giovanni.
Giovanna gets the envelope, opens it and reads. He's overcome with gratitude.
He immediately sits down to write a thank you note -
Dear Almighty,
Thank you so much for your help! It's not everything I needed but I know you got a lot of people you need to take care of so I will gladly take whatever help you can provide.
P.S. I don't know if you should be sending that through Mussolini though - motherfucker stole half of it.
Best,
Giovanni
Ah yes – the axis of weevils.