I’ve been lazy and about a week later we’re still in Italy.
As a young man, Mussolini was a pacifist socialist who often got into trouble with the police. As an old man he was a militaristic fascist who was the police. In the top picture he was right side up and in the bottom one he is upside down. Go figure.
In 1932 he wrote his definition of fascism for the Enciclopedia Italiana. It’s pretty interesting reading and includes zingers like: “Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of “happiness” and indefinite progress….” Take that democracy.
He built a cult of personality. His name was always spelled in capitals, he controlled everything that was written about him and you were not allowed to show pictures of Il Duce dancing or speaking with priests. He liked to portray himself as a sort of macho shithead.
But what he is best known for is the Axis of Blood and Steel; that is his alliance with Hitler’s Germany during the Second World War. The funny thing is that Mussolini didn’t even like Hitler. He thought the German was a little light in the loafers, if you get my drift. He even asked the Catholic Church to excommunicate Hitler.
Italian Communists caught him in April 1945. They killed him, killed his mistress and the people he was traveling with. Then they hung them upside down from meathooks. His daughter didn’t seem to get the message and is a well known fascist and topless model in Italy. Some people never learn. Being a topless model never makes you a Hollywood star.
1 comment
Grumpy
November 2, 2006 at 7:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
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