June 1, 2025 • 27 mins
Margaret reads you several short stories written by the one of the ideological leaders of the Mexican Revolution.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
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. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and
every week I bring you kind of whatever I want
it rules. I love my job, but specifically what I
(00:26):
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,
(00:50):
that guy Ricardo Flores Macgone, he wrote some fiction, and
I thought to myself, I should read you that fiction.
That's what we're gonna do this week and possibly next week.
There's a lot of this stuff, and it's 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
(01:13):
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 wei. I didn't mean
(01:34):
to I'm using the proletarian we. That's probably what mcgoughon
would have said. And if you're thinking to yourself, but Margaret,
I don't want to listen to your two part long
episode about the Maganistas before I enjoy Cuols and Media
book Club, I have to say to you that's reasonable.
(01:54):
The really short version of it is that around the
turn of the century, the previous turn of the century,
early nineteen hundreds, 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
(02:20):
lot of them will 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 Maganestas
after the Macgon brothers, but especially after Ricardo Floris Macgon,
and the kind of biggest thing that they did is
that they led an uprising where they tried to make
(02:42):
the social revolution across Mexico, mostly in nineteen eleven. It's
why it's called the maganesea rebellion of nineteen eleven. So
that failed partly because the actual liberal centrist groups that
they were working with in order to have a revolution
turned on them and killed them, which is a thing
(03:04):
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,
Ricarda Florismagon kind of he moved around a bunch And
(03:25):
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 Regeneracy on Regeneration, which was the anarchist paper
for the Liberal Party of Mexico, and so in that
(03:47):
he wrote a bunch of different fiction pieces. And that's
what I'm going to read to you. This first one
is from nineteen fifteen, and it is called The Frock
coat and the blouse. A lot of these are a
little pair arables 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
(04:08):
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
frock coat, gazing obliquely at its neighbor. I am next
to a blouse. A gust of wind blew one of
(04:31):
the humble blouse's arms atop 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.
(04:52):
Horror shrieked the frock coat. Your contact assassinates me, filthy rag, true,
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 that only comes into contact with decent people.
(05:16):
I am the vestiment 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
(05:36):
as if it were indignant, regretting that it had sheltered
that pretentious rag for a few sentimental, fraternal instants, 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
(06:00):
had felt under me the dreadful palpitation of a judge's heart.
I would feel defiled covering the paunch 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
(06:21):
it into cloth of the tailor who made it a
frock coat. I am the covering of useful beings, hard
working 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.
(06:44):
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.
(07:07):
I will be seen in the bosom of the anarchist group,
inside which good people prepare to transform society. And while
you conceited coate wallow and baccanials 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
(07:30):
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,
(07:54):
I make the revolution. I drive the world. Ragman put
an end to the conflict, putting the garments in different sacks,
which he carried uphill to his hovel. That's the end
of the first one. All of them are gonna be
like super earnest, right. But I feel like there's a
little bit of self awareness of exactly what's going on
(08:15):
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
in the faction that liberates. I do not have preferences
with the same fury, with the same crack. I fire
(08:36):
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
(08:58):
without me there would be not slaves who cry down
with tyranny. The tyrant calls me buttress 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
(09:19):
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
(09:41):
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 cart, I feel his heart
(10:02):
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
(10:23):
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
(10:46):
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
and the two classes, the rich and poor, those who
consume in those who suffer. That's right, it's advertisements. They're
(11:07):
here and you can listen to them if you want.
And we're back. Okay. The next story is called the
two pens behind the window of a display case, the
(11:29):
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.
(11:54):
Nobody looked at the steel one. The sun crashed its
rays upon the gold pen, which gleamed with sparkles like
glowing embers in its chanil cushion, but it was unable
to impress even a dim tone of beauty upon the
dark proletarian pen. Regarding its poor brother with pity, the
rich pen said, poor mangy thing, learn to be admired,
(12:20):
accustomed 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 chanel like a star in the satin of the sky.
(12:41):
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
(13:05):
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 unlessen august hand
takes me in its fingers and has me fix its
(13:27):
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.
(13:49):
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
(14:10):
sleep caged 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, vain pen, you are the disgrace of our species.
I would rather break my tips than lend myself to
(14:32):
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 scribe outlines the robust phrases
that announce to the world an era of liberty and justice.
(14:55):
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
(15:17):
creative fingers. When the poet and the sage touches me
with his fecunded anarchist hands, making me engrave and blank
notebooks as 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
(15:38):
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
(16:01):
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
(16:21):
bugle that calls the humble to arms and converts them
to magnificence. I resound for the revolutionary militia, gathering the
brave and 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.
(16:42):
The crash of a car motor, which broke through the
front of the shop prevented the rest of the proletarian
pens 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 its advertisements like these.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Okay, 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 nineteen ten. It's
from immediately before the Manganese to uprising. It's called Two revolutionaries,
the Old Revolutionary and the Modern Revolutionary, meet each other
(17:40):
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
(18:04):
other face to face, the old one ashen, disheveled, his
unpolished visage like a rag tossed into a wash basket,
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
(18:25):
the presentiment 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,
(18:48):
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, who his 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.
(19:12):
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 splendent.
A great hope rose up from the depths of his
being and gazed out through his face. He asked the
(19:35):
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, from the
tyranny of people with money. Our oldest children were locked
up in jail, the families abandoned, prostituted themselves, or panhandled.
(19:55):
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
(20:19):
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,
(20:44):
like mules and not like men. Our families 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 obey and in the products of our labor
to the hands of our masters. Anytime we wanted to
(21:05):
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
(21:28):
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
(21:49):
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
(22:10):
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
(22:31):
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
(22:52):
beginning by attacking the root of political tyranny, and that
root 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
(23:15):
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 its strengthened. This keeps on happening
because they have not attacked the root of the wicked tree.
(23:37):
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 mountains, something still blazed.
(23:59):
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
(24:21):
continued to the place where his brothers were fighting for
the new ideals. The end this story breaks my focking heart,
like the modern revolutionary is right instead of continuing this
you know, old style of revolution where they replace one
(24:42):
master with another, people need to set out to get
rid of all masters. They need 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
(25:04):
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, no, the problem is property and
the problem it's not explicitly said in this particular piece,
(25:26):
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
(25:47):
and stole that revolution. And then this is also written,
you know, 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.
(26:07):
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
(26:30):
trying to think it all through alongside of you. And yeah,
that's some fiction by Ricardo Floris mcgon, written one hundreds
some years ago before and after his heart was broken
by the revolution that he helped participate in. And that's
(26:52):
book club. I hope you enjoy it. I'll talk to
y'all soon.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts, cooal Zone Media visit our website coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at
coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
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. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and
every week I bring you kind of whatever I want
it rules. I love my job, but specifically what I
(00:26):
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,
(00:50):
that guy Ricardo Flores Macgone, he wrote some fiction, and
I thought to myself, I should read you that fiction.
That's what we're gonna do this week and possibly next week.
There's a lot of this stuff, and it's 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
(01:13):
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 wei. I didn't mean
(01:34):
to I'm using the proletarian we. That's probably what mcgoughon
would have said. And if you're thinking to yourself, but Margaret,
I don't want to listen to your two part long
episode about the Maganistas before I enjoy Cuols and Media
book Club, I have to say to you that's reasonable.
(01:54):
The really short version of it is that around the
turn of the century, the previous turn of the century,
early nineteen hundreds, 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
(02:20):
lot of them will 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 Maganestas
after the Macgon brothers, but especially after Ricardo Floris Macgon,
and the kind of biggest thing that they did is
that they led an uprising where they tried to make
(02:42):
the social revolution across Mexico, mostly in nineteen eleven. It's
why it's called the maganesea rebellion of nineteen eleven. So
that failed partly because the actual liberal centrist groups that
they were working with in order to have a revolution
turned on them and killed them, which is a thing
(03:04):
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,
Ricarda Florismagon kind of he moved around a bunch And
(03:25):
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 Regeneracy on Regeneration, which was the anarchist paper
for the Liberal Party of Mexico, and so in that
(03:47):
he wrote a bunch of different fiction pieces. And that's
what I'm going to read to you. This first one
is from nineteen fifteen, and it is called The Frock
coat and the blouse. A lot of these are a
little pair arables 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
(04:08):
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
frock coat, gazing obliquely at its neighbor. I am next
to a blouse. A gust of wind blew one of
(04:31):
the humble blouse's arms atop 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.
(04:52):
Horror shrieked the frock coat. Your contact assassinates me, filthy rag, true,
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 that only comes into contact with decent people.
(05:16):
I am the vestiment 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
(05:36):
as if it were indignant, regretting that it had sheltered
that pretentious rag for a few sentimental, fraternal instants, 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
(06:00):
had felt under me the dreadful palpitation of a judge's heart.
I would feel defiled covering the paunch 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
(06:21):
it into cloth of the tailor who made it a
frock coat. I am the covering of useful beings, hard
working 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.
(06:44):
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.
(07:07):
I will be seen in the bosom of the anarchist group,
inside which good people prepare to transform society. And while
you conceited coate wallow and baccanials 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
(07:30):
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,
(07:54):
I make the revolution. I drive the world. Ragman put
an end to the conflict, putting the garments in different sacks,
which he carried uphill to his hovel. That's the end
of the first one. All of them are gonna be
like super earnest, right. But I feel like there's a
little bit of self awareness of exactly what's going on
(08:15):
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
in the faction that liberates. I do not have preferences
with the same fury, with the same crack. I fire
(08:36):
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
(08:58):
without me there would be not slaves who cry down
with tyranny. The tyrant calls me buttress 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
(09:19):
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
(09:41):
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 cart, I feel his heart
(10:02):
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
(10:23):
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
(10:46):
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
and the two classes, the rich and poor, those who
consume in those who suffer. That's right, it's advertisements. They're
(11:07):
here and you can listen to them if you want.
And we're back. Okay. The next story is called the
two pens behind the window of a display case, the
(11:29):
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.
(11:54):
Nobody looked at the steel one. The sun crashed its
rays upon the gold pen, which gleamed with sparkles like
glowing embers in its chanil cushion, but it was unable
to impress even a dim tone of beauty upon the
dark proletarian pen. Regarding its poor brother with pity, the
rich pen said, poor mangy thing, learn to be admired,
(12:20):
accustomed 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 chanel like a star in the satin of the sky.
(12:41):
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
(13:05):
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 unlessen august hand
takes me in its fingers and has me fix its
(13:27):
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.
(13:49):
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
(14:10):
sleep caged 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, vain pen, you are the disgrace of our species.
I would rather break my tips than lend myself to
(14:32):
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 scribe outlines the robust phrases
that announce to the world an era of liberty and justice.
(14:55):
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
(15:17):
creative fingers. When the poet and the sage touches me
with his fecunded anarchist hands, making me engrave and blank
notebooks as 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
(15:38):
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
(16:01):
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
(16:21):
bugle that calls the humble to arms and converts them
to magnificence. I resound for the revolutionary militia, gathering the
brave and 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.
(16:42):
The crash of a car motor, which broke through the
front of the shop prevented the rest of the proletarian
pens 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 its advertisements like these.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Okay, 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 nineteen ten. It's
from immediately before the Manganese to uprising. It's called Two revolutionaries,
the Old Revolutionary and the Modern Revolutionary, meet each other
(17:40):
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
(18:04):
other face to face, the old one ashen, disheveled, his
unpolished visage like a rag tossed into a wash basket,
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
(18:25):
the presentiment 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,
(18:48):
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, who his 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.
(19:12):
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 splendent.
A great hope rose up from the depths of his
being and gazed out through his face. He asked the
(19:35):
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, from the
tyranny of people with money. Our oldest children were locked
up in jail, the families abandoned, prostituted themselves, or panhandled.
(19:55):
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
(20:19):
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,
(20:44):
like mules and not like men. Our families 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 obey and in the products of our labor
to the hands of our masters. Anytime we wanted to
(21:05):
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
(21:28):
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
(21:49):
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
(22:10):
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
(22:31):
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
(22:52):
beginning by attacking the root of political tyranny, and that
root 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
(23:15):
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 its strengthened. This keeps on happening
because they have not attacked the root of the wicked tree.
(23:37):
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 mountains, something still blazed.
(23:59):
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
(24:21):
continued to the place where his brothers were fighting for
the new ideals. The end this story breaks my focking heart,
like the modern revolutionary is right instead of continuing this
you know, old style of revolution where they replace one
(24:42):
master with another, people need to set out to get
rid of all masters. They need 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
(25:04):
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, no, the problem is property and
the problem it's not explicitly said in this particular piece,
(25:26):
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
(25:47):
and stole that revolution. And then this is also written,
you know, 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.
(26:07):
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
(26:30):
trying to think it all through alongside of you. And yeah,
that's some fiction by Ricardo Floris mcgon, written one hundreds
some years ago before and after his heart was broken
by the revolution that he helped participate in. And that's
(26:52):
book club. I hope you enjoy it. I'll talk to
y'all soon.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts, cooal Zone Media visit our website coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at
coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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James Stout
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