Part One: The Popular Olympics: Antifascist Athletes Help Stop a Coup

In this reverse episode, James Stout talks with Margaret about the Popular Olympics of 1936 Spain and the competitors who stayed to fight.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to String of Turtles, the only podcast
about Pepperonia prostrata, a tiny, succulent native plant that you
can be growing yourself. And this podcast is entirely devoted
to that plant. That is the podcast you're listening to.
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and that's my intro. It

(00:25):
was so good. Why did you Why why did you
lead with that? Macie? Well, I've been thinking about how
I should just This is how I'm going to start
pitching podcasts. Is just introduced podcast as if it's those
podcasts I mean, I mean strong first pitch as that
is my favorite plant playing to my audience. I'll send

(00:48):
you I'll send you a picture of what that is
James later. Yeah, please, I'm always excited to learn more
about plants. Well, or you're listening to Cool People Did
Cool Stuff, a twice weekly podcast about all the greatest
people in history, including a String of Turtles with me
today as my guest is James, who is actually not

(01:14):
the guest but the host. The guest host, James. Everybody,
I just went full late night on us. James. Yeah, yeah,
I feel like I'm walking out. I'm going to sit
on the sofa yeah, I mean that you should feel
like you're comfortable and sitting on a sofa during this podcast. Yeah,
I need to install like a podcasting sofa and that

(01:37):
full support, and it would explain why you're wearing a
three piece suit. I was surprised, I was. Yeah, I'm
an American citizen now, so I don't have to It's
not like it's not like a condition of retaining my passport. Yeah,
I'm just swearing it is how I feel safe and comfortable. Yeah. So,

(01:58):
as we've implied, James is going to be telling me
about stuff, and I actually don't know what we're going
to be talking about for the full proper reverse experience. James. Yeah, good,
I get to surprise you. People who have listened to
the other things that we've done together will be both
both shocked and amazed to hear that that this one

(02:19):
is based in Spain. Yeah, that's what I do. So
I'm going to keep doing it until someone stops me.
What I want to ask you, Margaret, is what do
you think? What do you make of the Olympics. As
a kid, I thought they were cool, and then once
I started understanding politics, I learned that they are not
cool because there are this massive gentrification force that um

(02:43):
destroys entire neighborhoods and or cities every couple of years.
That's what I know about the Olympics. But I also
am like even as a like grouchy, I hang out
with the girls in the corner of the gym class
and get failing grades and paint my nails black um
instead of particip opinion. Even back in my most anti
sports I still kind of thought it was cool when

(03:03):
people like spin around six times in the air on
ice skates and ship. Yeah that is cool. That the
ship that people do is cool. Like you said, the
structure that that brings them best to do it is
deeply uncool. And I think, yeah, your ark is very
much like mine, except that my PhD was procerally funded
by the IOC, so it was a little more acrimonious.
My break up with your Olympic gates that the International

(03:26):
Olympic Committee, the est it is the very same, based
in a nice little town by Lake Juneva in Switzerland,
where all the good stuff happened. Yeah, no bad stuff happened,
and famously that this is because they entirely took the
right side in the Second World war and just a
little bit of what we're going to talk about today, right,

(03:48):
So this is they were talking about the Olympics and
why they're great, yeah, and where they're magnifficent and where
there are no problems with them. These are actually a
different Olympics from the Olympics you're probably thinking of. People
are probably familiar with different Olympics. We have been different
Olympics through time. So we're going to talk today. I think, well,
I want to start actually explaining a little bit about
the modern Olympics or the ioc Olympics, or the Olympics

(04:11):
you probably saw when you're a kid on television, and
those are like I think I want to defer to
my friend David Goldblack, who has written a really good
book on the history of the Olympic Games. It's called
The Games. People should buy it. He calls them the
gathering of the transnational bourgeoisie, which I think is pretty
right on. They so the Olympics have this claim right
that they're like handed down from a classical tradition. M

(04:35):
that did the idea that it comes directly from ancient Greece.
To where where are they doing it next? Paris or
wherever l A hopefully not so. This is kind of
baked into one Olympic law. But it's not really true, right,
Like a lot of them, the stuff they talk about
in ancient Greece isn't really true. A lot of it
actually draws from much more recent events, one of which
is a Cotsworld Olympics, which takes place in a place

(04:56):
where I grew up. Okay what no, I I had
don't even understand cards swallow Okay, yes, yeah British. Is
this a sex thing? Yeah, the older the old cock
Sword Olympic. No, it's the con sort of place where
I lived. Nice place that's a sheet. This is like

(05:19):
cock Fosters. When I was a subway in London, I
had a hard time. Everyone knew I was the American
because I would giggle every time the nice British lady
the robot would say, next up is cock Fosters anyway. Yeah,
this is like Lord Hereford's Knob. Where about like a
real place you know, who's the tourist, just like well

(05:45):
worn path to take a picture with the sign Lord
Hereford's Knob, and like two very tired people who just
have to deal with that ship every time they get
have to give their address to someone on the phone.
The other thing I found out was my publisher tour
t o R. I didn't know that that was a word.
Went I went to Yeah, yeah, darn more like you
do the ten tours and you go and go around him. Yeah,

(06:08):
I went to one of them. I think Mr Avalon
was maybe based on one we were in I don't know, Devon,
England somewhere now. It's like the witchy town in West Center, England,
the witchy town in west at Stratford, No, West Center England.
It's like, y'all Salem oh um, it's like where all

(06:32):
the touristy witchy ship is. You know, Well that's not
what yeah anyway, Yeah, so yeah. Codswort Olympics, which predate
the modern Olympics, take place where I grew up, and people,
if you've heard of them, you'll heard of him because
one of the events you shin kicking, which is that

(06:53):
means something completely different. No, No, you put your hands
on the other person's shoulders and kick the ship out
of each other's shins and give up. Yeah, yields it
falls over here. That's the most classic drunk game in
the world. Much of English culture can be understood, is like,
that's the most classic drunk game in the world. I
don't know if people if you want to know exactly

(07:14):
where I'm from and how I used to speak before
I went to university. If you watch that that that
documentary about cheese rolling on Netflix, you're familiar with cheese rolling. No,
the fact that there's a documentary on Netflix. So they
roll the cheese down the hill? Do they make the
cheese wheels by rolling them? Then you chase? It's quite

(07:37):
literally literal Cooper's Hill. You just it's I mean, it's
not fucking about. It's a proper hill. Okay, you're gonna
lose your footing at some point, but the key it's
just to kind of let it roll and go kind
of come down the hill just flailing and aim for
the cheese when you get there. Fantastic. I mean a

(07:58):
lot of people get very grievously injured, like people have
life altering injuries. All right. I've been listening to the
Terry Pratchett books again, and I swear to God all
of the weird fantasy made up just England. I remember
one time I interviewed Alan Moore about this thing, and
I was asking him how he felt about v for Vendetta,
and he was like, look, it's an American parable, the

(08:20):
movie version, so they should have said it in America,
and so setting in England because you Americans think we
probably still have giants or whatever here. And I couldn't
tell him he was wrong. And the fact that you
have a cheese rolling hill in cock swallow codswallow, cops
fold Cotswold. Yeah, okay, so that's that's on me. That

(08:44):
one's on me. I'm sorry, Okay. Yeah, this is a
very twee version of English. And it's like the cops
was are full of people who like have a ship
tone of money and I want to pretend that it's
the eighteenth century, okay, and and people who have lived
there and are in agriculture or whatever. But yeah, it
presents a very tweet version of Englishness, which it packages
for foreigners, you know, like there were bust tours of

(09:04):
Americans all the time coming through villages near where I
grew up. And it's not it's not all of what
Englishness is anyway. The Olympics have always claimed that they
unite the youth of the world right and promote peace
through mutual understanding, acceptance of the rules and fair play.
But in reality they really celebrate the shared interests of
global elite with enough time and money to travel around
the world before commercial airlines existed, and then they take

(09:26):
part in events like modern pentathlon, which, if you're not
a fan of marger, includes fencing, horse riding, and shooting
in addition to running and swimming. I see that rules
I have known. I know those are all bougie things,
but they also are rule. So yeah, I did a
trial for Olympic Modern pentathlon when I was younger, and

(09:47):
it's fun. There's lots of things you can't do in fencing,
which makes it kind of cucked in my opinion. Yeah,
but yeah it was fun. Not not for me, not
the way when it's fen my life. But there was
a while there where if you were good at exercising,
they were just trying to find people who could who could,
Like Britain had this weird thing for a while where
they talk to the Olympic medals by just being like, hey,

(10:07):
you're good exercising, can you go on a horse right bucket?
Like now? Yeah, okay, so by the it makes shin kicking,
you know. I never really got a shin kicking you
want to try shooting off a horse, But yeah, that
sounds better. If they bought the shin kicking back, I

(10:29):
think I'd be more in favor of the IOC, just
like recruit people who have abnormally bony shins. Yeah. So,
by the early nineteen thirties, Olympics have become an international institution,
but they continue to enforce a rule about amateurism. So
the amateurism rule holds the Olympians can't be professional athletes
and they must not receive a financial reward for practicing

(10:51):
their sport. So this rule has its has its roots
really in the invention of sport. So, like we were
talking about cheese rolling, Right, what's sport does is it
takes play and then it contains it like both physically
and within a set of rules. Right, if people want
to read about this, that the kind of the classic
Texas Homo Ludin's And this happens in nineteenth century England, right,

(11:14):
and very quickly after sports like football and redby first
football and rugby have to deviate from each other. Right,
they started the same sport. Okay, there's a there's like
a myth about the guy who invented rugby. It's not true.
It became possible for teams around the country to compete
against each other before this, Like one town or school
might have its own set of rules and they play

(11:35):
against the town next door or something. You can see
this in like folk football matches, where yeah, they're cool,
Like there's a football in between two towns and they
have to kick it into other town basically, and like that,
there are very basic rules. Go ahead. The sport that
I play, it's called bella garth, and then bella garth
you get foam swords and you get each other with
the swords, but not in the head. And there's all

(11:57):
kinds of really elaborate rules, and the the sports split
and I don't remember which direction I when someone's gonna
be really upset about this. Dagger here is a very
similar sport. Dagger here is where you get foam swords
and then you hit each other with the swords, but
not in the head. It's the same sport, but there's
different rules, and it's called cross gaming. When a dagger

(12:20):
here field goes to a dagger to bella garth field,
and vice versa. So I'm very familiar with the difficulties
presented in learning. You know exactly how why the foam
tip of the sword has to be um, whether or
not there's resurrection spells like I'm I feel the rugby

(12:43):
football problem that writing into. Previous to that, see like
folk football had a very simile set of rules like
this's that's one. I forget where it is somewhere in
the West Country. Whether the only rules you were allowed
to stab your opponent again, And that's a problem them
and dagger here. I don't think these people were dealing

(13:04):
in foam daggers that would see you. Okay, okay, So
but once their rules, who agreed to right, you can
play anyone, You can play anyone from anywhere, so very quickly,
this allows people of different classes to play each other,
and so very quickly people who are in a upper
class pedition start to fence off from playing sports against

(13:24):
people who are not right. So this distinction emerges between
what are called gentlemen and what are called players gender police.
For the most part, right it's men. The Olympics with
a gentleman and amateurs. People wealthy enough to take time
off work for travel and training work because you could
afford the time and travel weren't welcome at the Olympics,

(13:45):
and you can see these rules being used to police
not just class, but also race. You're probably familiar with
Jim's Thorpe. That's the name I've heard before, and I'll
remember once to tell me. He's an Indigenous man and
role member of the Second Fox Nation and he's probably
the greatest athlete America has produced. Okay, so his first time,

(14:07):
he went to one of these residential schools, right he
went to Carlisle Indian School. He was allegedly walking past
where some kids were training high jump one day. I
wanted to try it, and still in his school clothes,
he beat all of them. Twelve. He dominated the pentathlon
and decathlon at the Olympics. He however, had his medal

(14:30):
removed because he played semi pro baseball in college. So
he's doing this is his sixteen sport, rightly five But
before that he got some money for playing semi for
a baseball So no one wanted to compete against this guy. No,
he is he is like a gigger chad, to put

(14:51):
in modern parlance, like he's it's really sad. Actually, Jim
thought wrote a book about the Olympics. This guy loved
what the Olympics were supposed to be and like wanted
this chance to show himself to the world and improve
him every bit. They're equal and their superior in fifteen
different sports, right, And he did that and then they
were like, now, fuck you dude, you can't you can't

(15:13):
have your medal. So he went on to play pro
baseball and then also pro football because he hadn't played
enough sports. So like, yeah, there's there's not that he
was like before Bo Jackson and without a shoe contract sadly,
but his medals were reinstated, like not that long ago.
The IOC gave his family his meles back, but he
died not having had his medals taken away, right. And

(15:36):
you can see this in other instances with other especially
with indigenous athletes. Actually the them always falling foul of
little professionals professionalism rules because it wasn't there was one
acceptance and professionalism rule, and it was for fencing coaches.
Fencing coaches could compete, okay, because it's a class thing, right,

(15:57):
Like the fencing is that that's what it was about.
It is about people that they didn't want to play
with and people who they wanted to play with, so well,
that sucks. Yeah, it was shipped actually, which is why,
as we're going to find out, there were some other
Olympics which were considerably better. The Olympics didn't want athletes
like Jim Thorpe because it dispproved a lot of what

(16:17):
the Olympics were supposed to be about, which is kind
of leugenic. But Workers Sport did a welcome athletes from
slams and sworkshops around the world, and retally they would
run faster, jump, higher, lift heavier than their boys counterparts.
Like everything else on the left, it broke up very
quickly into multiple factions. And yeah, it's shocking, isn't it.
When is when? And where is this? This is the

(16:40):
first couple of decades of the twentieth century. Okay, so
you'll see them mostly like like post Russian Revolution and
you have like a you have a sports International, you
have like it's Workers Sport was huge. It's hard for
me to convey to people like how big this was.
You'll get like, so for instance, um, if we look

(17:02):
at the Workers Olympics, you had a hundred thousand people
competing in a quarter of a million watching. Jesus, these
are vast events at one of the Spartaki Ads. I
think it was a Sparkay. So you have the workers
Olympics with the Socialist of Spartaki adds, a communist right
like Spartacus. Yeah, the Spartaki adds. I think it was

(17:24):
at the Spartaki yad. They they had this for the
closing ceremony. They constructed a giant tower like look at
several stories high, like paper and cardboard. Tower collapsed it
because they had written global Finance Capital on it. So
the closing ceremony was collapsing it and setting it on fire. Rules. Yeah,

(17:46):
it was pretty cool stuff. Actually, it's it's said, we
don't have this anymore. And so one of the primary
defenders of this amateurism, right, it's class police and a
sports this dude called Avery Brandage. Every brandage first headed
up the United States Olympic Committee and then the International
Olympic Committee. And it's around this particularly odious bureaucrat that
I'm going to sort of start our story today because

(18:08):
you see in nineteen thirty one, the same year, acquarter
of a million socialists in Germany watched that fake tower
get pulled to the ground and burned in the closing
ceremony of the Workers Olympics. The International Olympic Committee met
in Barcelona to see who was going to hold the
nineteen thirty six Olympic Games. Okay, ten days before they met,

(18:28):
Spain had declared a republic. When they decided to meet there,
it was a monarchy, soas military regime had collapsed, they
step down and a left liberal republic had been constituted.
Crowds of working class people had welcomed in the streets,
and Francesque Massier had taken the opportunity presented to declare Catalonia,
the nation of which Bathlona is the capital. Independent. In

(18:52):
the weeks that follow Catalonia haven't quite left Spain, but
gained significant autonomy and its assembly. The estapp Catalet joined
the Republican Arty of Luish Compounds and the Lopping Your
Group to form a new party called the Republican Left
of Catalonia catal initials e r C. It basically became
a popular front combining a really broad range of liberals

(19:13):
and leftists within Catalonia. Within Catalonia, Yeah, but the popular
front policy doesn't come about a little later with the
comm in turn, but this was for the most part,
most of the popular front. So obviously the International Olympic
Committee looks at this and it's a giant disaster for them. Right,
for the working people of Catalonia is a huge win.
But uh, because they're like, no, but we want to

(19:34):
like run around and ride horses with rich people, and
these people want to run around and ride horses on
rich people, and so it's like they're not really Yeah,
it's actually like your your dagger here. Yeah, it doesn't
much like that. Yeah, it's a small difference, just just
one't work. Yeah, prepositions whatever, Yeah, yeah, don't start. So

(19:56):
there were five counts to one marquee at this meeting, right,
a marquee. I don't quite know where they say it
on the hierarchy, but it's as yeah, I always forget.
It's someone whose job is being born. That's the most
distinguishing element of their life. Those people shouldn't been making
decisions for us anyway. They were supposed to vote on

(20:19):
whether games will be held, right, and they probably did vote,
but the International Olympic Committee took the very strange step
of deciding there wasn't a quorum, which they hadn't done before,
even when there were fewer attendees. Okay, this this specific ship,
like this vote is months of my life in an
archive in Switzerland, which you know, whatever. Wait, but but

(20:43):
then who decides because the democracy failed? And then one
person was like no, never mind, there wasn't quorum, Like well, yeah,
so that's what I would love to tell you. That
what I have been looking for. So you have the
airs and you have the various like international Olympic committees reporting,

(21:03):
So it's someone in the structure of the International Olympic Committee, right,
I decided we need to vote by telegram. It's dead
And I've looked at these telegrams extensively, and I don't
want to say it's I can't prove it true or
they would have written a boo about it, but I'm
pretty sure they were like, now we can't have the
Olympics here, like we need to, like we need to

(21:26):
do another vote because they've they've voted the wrong way
this time. Yeah, because all these parts people didn't come.
But they were like, no, we're not coming, like these
people are like having a revolution, Like I'm not going there.
I mean, it was a it turned out to be
a rough time to be I mean a nice time
in some ways. But nineteen thirty six pain Catalonian Barcelona

(21:48):
was like also a rough place, you know, yeah, well
there was a good place for sports. We're going to
find out, Okay. So whatever the process, they decided to
pick a more stable democracy instead, and so they gave
the nine six Olympics to Vimar, Germany. Yeah, which actually maybe, uh,
do you know what what won't collapse into a genocidal

(22:10):
fascist regime A pile of turtles, that's right, turtles all
the way down. Yeah, here's an advert for turtles. We're back.
Have you enjoyed those turtles? So in the years that
followed ninety one, Margaret, some some stuff happened in Vimar Germany.

(22:33):
Some things occurred. It's stopped being Vimar Germany. I feel like, yeah,
that was the main That was the main thing that happened.
Was it stopping via my Germany? They went from interesting
and good into interesting and bad. Yeah. Yeah, that's a
that's one of the most distinct sumations of German history

(22:54):
in the nineties. X. Yeah, yeah, that's all you need
to know about it. Everyone, we've done now, Okay, So
Catalonia actually remained pretty stable under the earc relations in
Madrid got much worse than nineteen thirty three when the Data,
which is a Catholic right wing party took power in
Madrid and began to crack down on Catalan autonomy and

(23:16):
social progress. And they were extremely progressive. Right, we're going
to talk about what the sports, but like the legalized abortion,
you could divorce with no particular preconditions if you wanted to.
They were massive on literacy, and we're going to see
really big on eradicating tuberculosis as well. Okay, is this
the Spanish Republic or is this Catalonian specific This is

(23:38):
Catalonia specifically, So like throughout the Spanish Republic, Catalonia has
this left wing liberal left progressive party, and in Madrid
they have liberal left progressive super Judge for two years
and then liberal left Progressive and then when the liberal

(23:59):
left regressive party get elected the second time, or party
sorts of Popular Front elected the second time, the civil
war begins because the army ain't having that ship, which
if you want to hear more about, we did a
whole episode on that Jamie loft Us last year which
I read James's work to do a good chunk of

(24:20):
thank you for being one of the least dozen people
who Yeah, and some of them are not related to me,
I say, because I've given it to my family. But
I'm pretty sure they haven't cracked it because yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but they own it. Yeah, the same thing. Okay, So

(24:41):
relations between the anarchists and the e f C were
not super great at this time. The e C. The
anarchist didn't like the government. Yeah, it was. It was
strange stuff. Well that this definitely ends with the anarchists
being partly with the government for a bit, It's true, Yeah,
and I know that the go ahead. Yeah, then ends
with them are getting England, which that will happen. Uh.

(25:04):
So it wasn't a call uncommon for anarchist cops and
high guns acting on part of employers to get into
shootouts in the raval working class neighborhood they called the
Bardi Chenz, which means Chinatown, not because there was any
particular concentration of Asia or Chinese people there, but because
they've seen gangster films about Chicago's Chinatown and figured they

(25:25):
had kind of the same vibe, which they kind of
love for them. So one way, the Catalan government did
try and reach out to the anarchists working class was
through sport. Okay, Both anarchists and liberals, as well as
a smaller socialists and communist factions, had a history of
organized sports in Barcelona. The Catalan Olympic Committee predated the

(25:45):
Spanish one, and Catalan teams had helped to advance, accord
to Catlin nationalism wall around Europe. But the e f
c U sport kind of differently. It wasn't about like
elite sport. It wasn't about like sending your national team
of like sporting freaks somewhere else. It was using sport
to bring working people into its its Catalan project, right, Okay,
Anakist sports slightly different. Anarchist sport had always praised itself

(26:07):
more in terms of public health. They were bigger to
teach your kids to swim so they wouldn't drown, And
they were really big into the eradication of tuberculosis. Actually,
the anarchists, Yeah, yeah, fun tuberculosis. Yeah, let's the official
stance of this podcast. That's all of cool Zone media
were an anti fuberculosis, which still kills a bunch of people.

(26:31):
Oh yeah, I had no idea it kills so many
people just because of different levels of access to care
found not in certain parts of the world anyway. Yeah,
it's bastard in its way. I have to get a
chest X ray every time I wanted to teach at
New University, okay, because you have to pass the tuberculos
test to teach in California. And I guess that's fair. Yeah,

(26:54):
I've been vaccinated, so I don't pass the test. See. Instead,
they're just like take some of these rays and you
know you're not. You're looking at it like if I
get cancer, please to them. Okay, so um. And it
supports also about this idea of the three eights, right,
which I'm sure you've talked about before. I can't remember

(27:15):
the three I don't think so okay lost tress or
just the three eights is like three hours for work,
three hours for work, eight hours for work, yeahs for
like sleeping, and then eight hours for playing self improvements
of education. These guys are fiercely educated, like the Catalan
anarchists are amazing like autodidacts. They're reading like all the

(27:39):
Their theory comes from working people educating themselves in each other, right,
and they're super big on speaking Esperanto, yeah, which yeah,
I don't think we've spoken about this before, but it's
so cool. They're like, well, the thing that's holding back
the global working classes kind of talk to each other.
So we've gotta learn Esperanto, and and so they would
teach themselves esperanto. The only person I've met who told

(28:01):
me that he spoke esperanto was the Dutch squatter lawyer
who wore a like huge fur coat and was super gay.
At like every squad action he ruled. He was always
like the police liaison and he would just like go
up and talk to the cops, probably not in Esperanto
because it's the working class language. Yeah, you shouldn't done.
He could have just drive it out. Yeah anyway. Yeah,

(28:25):
So the two e f C and anarchist concepts of
sport met in this thing called popular sport, which is
kind of like the popular Front, right, Okay, it's not
the socialist and workers Socialist workers sport was pretty much
limited to socialists. Communist spark tackiads are for communists, right,
popular sport the idea was for everyone, and the idea
was for people just to get healthy. Have found it

(28:46):
like this is a time in the thirties where people
going like are dying very quickly because of the jobs
they are doing, right, Like, it's Barcelona is a very
industrial town. Catalonia is more industrial than the rest of Spain,
and their jobs are killing them. Okay, were they shin kicking? Yeah?
That was the shin kicking factory. Really, it's a short career, rock. Yeah,

(29:09):
it's not as short as you are once your shins
get kicked off, I guess. Oh yeah, bang my gong.
Things weren't really going so well in Berlin, so real
history buffs may be aware that the Fimar Republic did
not in fact make it. Instead, the country was under
the increasingly ironclad fist of Madison Cawthorne's favorite author, Adolf Hitler.

(29:31):
He used to be my fucking politician where used to live?
Oh god, yeah, okay, well I'm glad he's not anymore. Yeah. Sorry.
Despite this dramatic pivot for Germany, the IOC saw no
reason to take the games away, okay, which is like
such an interesting inversion, right, because they show up at
a monarchy and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't

(29:51):
know about this democracy ship. That's a little messy. Let's
go to that democracy and then that democracy becomes an autocracy,
and they're like, that's that's shure, that's fine. Yeah, it's
called the trains run on time famously, so it's fine,
which they didn't but no, no, yeah, but that's it's
it's more about what we tell ourselves, isn't it. Across

(30:12):
the world, people decided that taking an international event which
claimed to be about fraternity and fair play to a
regime that explicitly about anti semitism and fascism wasn't a
good idea actually, m and so this boycott movement begins
to coalesce in the United States. It's really cool. Actually,
it brings together like liberal Catholics, Jewish groups, Communists, and most,

(30:32):
if not all, of the black press and black political organizations. Okay,
it really coalesces these these groups in in a way
that hadn't they hadn't done before. And in the U
S they're very very nearly succeeded in achieving a boyco Actually,
the US very nearly boycotted the Olympics, and if the
U S had, like I've looked at British Cabinet papers

(30:53):
about this, Britain was like by Olympics for an American
thing in two. L A had hosted the olymp picks
and like it was amazing. It was very l A.
The Olympic village was patrolled by cowboys and funded by
real estate speculators, which is the most l A thing. Right.
The pentathlon is now no more swords. You just have

(31:14):
to shoot the guns wall on the horses, you know.
General MacArthur competed in the modern pentathlon earlier Olympics, but
with just qualifacts. He was using a handgun so large
that they couldn't tell if he'd shot a good grouping
or just destroyed the target. Rules again, Yeah, it was
kind of a chad move. Just the shotgun. Fucky, you're

(31:39):
just turning up with a hand cannon and yeah, I'm
taking the whole target ten feet backwards every time. So
this is where our boy Every brandage comes in, right,
every brand age leads to don't boycott movement. I guess, okay,
it's I don't think he went into the let's go
to the Olympics. Nine Nazi Germany things an anti sem

(32:02):
might be. He sure as funk came out as one. Okay.
He becomes convinced that he's being taken down by a
Jewish communist plot that that's a quote from him. He
which is I think it used to be able to
say in an interview to the newspapers and just still
become chair of the International Olympic Committee later. I'm just
laughing as the thing that is always funny is not

(32:23):
the right world, but I'm gonna use it. Funny about
anti Semitism is that it's it's Schrodinger's capitalist you know,
like the Jewish person is either a capitalist or a communist,
whichever one you hate. That's what they are. Yeah, yeah,
Sing is a bad guy. Yeah. So to find out
what was going on in Germany, every brand, a dude
who didn't speak German decided to take a fact finding

(32:44):
tour around Nazi Germany accompanied by Nazi Germans. It's shocking,
pure unfiltered truth. Yeah. He just went in there like
like so many cringey journalists, you try and do that.
I can't. So through his trans eighty discussions translated by
his Nazi mind, he didn't see any red flags, shockingly,

(33:06):
and he became a strong supporter of keeping politics out
of sport, which is always a way of moting the
status quare right. It's always bullshit in Europe. The Olympic
movement didn't really bother with reaching out to like national
Olympic committees that were all run by counts and marquees
and things, but they just got on with taking their
alternative setting up an alternative. So I realized that we

(33:28):
are like two thousand words in now, but this is
where we give us to talk about the thing that
we're talking about. To say, the thing that we're talking about, Yeah,
it's called the Popular Olympics. We touched on it in
the Spanish Civil War episodes, so I'm really excited to
learn more about it. Chess and yeah, there was no
shin kicking, there was human human tower building. I love

(33:48):
that we're like thirty minutes in, here's what we're talking about.
I'm sorry, this is this is my like perpetual lot
as a recovering academic. That's where you're like, I'm reading
all about these autodiet acts. They're so like, I know,
if I know one thing, I know that James is
not about to compliment academia. I know that it can

(34:13):
fuck off. But as I did for me, yeah, yeah,
you know what you shouldn't abandon and walk away from
after after ten years of wasting your life turtles. Yeah,
they don't abandon the turtle. Because I've been thinking about this,
and I've been thinking about how it really is a
new year and it's time for a new sponsor. Here

(34:35):
are cool people did cool stuff. And I'm not gonna
stop loving potatoes. I'm not gonna stop growing potatoes badly,
but turtles. What if? My what if my Instagram turning
message in box was full of memes about turtles instead
of memes about potatoes. I'm tired of the potato memes.
I'm sorry. Videos Watching turtles eat food is one of

(35:01):
the most beautiful things on this planet. You know, they
also do eat potatoes. As soon as I oh, I
told someone I was going to do this and they
were like, and they immediately sent me a meme oft
potato and I'm like, that's that counts. This does warm
my heart. I stopped in a bike race wants to

(35:21):
rescue a turtle hero. It was upside down. He won
the real that at the end they gave you an award. Now, yeah,
I don't think you've met bike people, Margaret and hit
their shins themselves. No, no, they said that organization. It's

(35:44):
not given me any woods. I turned out their name
was extremely racist, and it's probably well let's let's let's
hear from the turtles. We're back, and yeah, turtle wax
made some turtles. So in Europe, as I said, right,
they they had a little conference actually in Paris in

(36:07):
April of nineteen thirty six, and this conference welcomed people
from the workers Sport movement who actually weren't going to
Germany because Germany was in the process of violently suppressing
any workers movements. Yeah, Jewish groups who weren't going to Germany.
They don't think we have to explain that one. Anti
fascists similarly, and some genuinely concerned liberals, like there were

(36:28):
a few liberals who were like, yeah, it doesn't seem right. Uh,
something up with those Germans, especially the Nazi Germans. They
all meet in Paris at this confidence international conference with
the respect of the Olympic ideal, which it's very clear
that they know that the Olympic ideal is bullshit because
they write about it being bullshit before and after. But
they they're quite smart in being like, hey, you're not

(36:51):
doing the thing you said you would do, Like we're
going to call you out of the ship activists never
a change. It was I think quite smart and I
think it probably Yeah, it brings in some liberals who
who may have not wanted to play with the anarchists otherwise,
So in April they come to the enimous decision. Instead
the Catalans, the people who wanted to host the games anyway,

(37:15):
had all the stadia to do it, they should host
the games. That's right, Yeah, it does. The problem is
it's April, and it's not possible to do anything in
Spain in August because it's not a month that people work,
and that is a good thing. But they yeah, you
take August off. It's not working, is good, not being

(37:36):
productive to capitalism. It is a way to spend your
time that is laudable. And so they have to do
it in a summer. So they're going to do it
in July, right, They want to get there ahead of
the Berlin Games, so that gives them three months to
organized Olympiad, which sports fans will know it's not really long.
So by this time the Popular Front policy of the

(37:57):
Soviet Union in the comment Tern had resulted in alliance
of leftists and Borgia liberals against fasciston By May a
Popular Front coalition of leftists and anti fascist parties helped
power in France, Spain and Catalonia, so they all came
together to support the games. So normally at the Olympics,
nations compete for prowess, right at this Olympics they co operated.

(38:20):
So Spain and France paid three hundred thousand Pacentos, Catalonia
a hundred thousand. And the facilities were already there. They've
been used for the World's Fair, which is another gathering
of the transnational bourgeoisie. Yeah, and some really really weird
racist stuff happened at those, which will talk about another time.
So they had the facilities already, They had a hotel

(38:43):
which they renamed the Hotel Olympic, and they started refitting
it to house as many people as possible. They want
to read a little bit from one of the letters
they sent out trying to recruit people, right, they were
very quickly they were like, uh, this this is big.
Then we have to have to people who can actually compete.
So it is necessary to give a practical demonstration of
the international anti fascist sport. And it is just this

(39:06):
that the People's Olympiad is going to do. Popular Old
people's like the same thing. I prefer popular actually the
organizing committing one of their letters. So what they're trying
to do here is they're trying to show the ability
of the Popular Front to organize and the strength of
the Popular Front, right, Like we're not just a few

(39:27):
like old socialists men like smoking pipes in rooms talking
about a popular front, Like we have thousands of young
people who will kick your ass when we when we
do a war. Yeah, oh I never even thought about that.
How it's like a flexing. It's like no, no, no,
you don't understand. There's a big war coming between fascism
and anti fascism, and we're gonna win. Yes, we will

(39:48):
take Like I mean, if you look at many of
the modern Olympic traditions, right the opening ceremony with the flags,
the national anthems have done when the medal is awarded,
these are creations of Carl D. M a Nazi German
like and it's very specifically to be like we we
are the alphas here, we will kill you. They last. Yeah,

(40:12):
they didn't win, not win famously there for two in
World Wars. So the poor stets, the the infrastructure of
the games communicates a message, right, you've got Beijing had
a bird's nest. Berlin had a bell tower with this
bell that summoned the youth of the world on it

(40:33):
engraved in it. I told you l A had the
Olympic Village controlled by cowboys and sold off by real
estate developers. But but Lind's Olympic Village is kind of interesting.
How did the volunteer pilots of the Condor Legion? Do
you know the Condor Legion, O Margaret, they're the ones
who ended up bomb in northern Spain during the Civil War.

(40:54):
They are, Yeah, they're the first. That's not true to
say that they're the first people of the carpet bomb
cities in Europe. Oh so nice people. They were living
at the Olympic Village in Balin. I mean, while Barcelona
didn't have Olympic Village, so you used the stadium they
already had and the ability to athletes wherever they could.
You can see one of the things I found in
the archive, which is kind of cool. It's just a

(41:14):
little questionnaire that they put through people's doors and be like,
we are having an anti fat Olympics. Would you like
to host someone? How many beds do you have do
you have a sofa? It's really sweet and you can
take sweet. I'll give them breakfast and like they would
be compensated accordingly, right, And this is okay, I really

(41:34):
like because it's like you can actually organize things in
a decentralized way. It's still an organizational system, like people
will be like the only way to organize as you
set up a village, and you like otherwise it's just
pure chaos, and instead you have these organizational systems that
harness chaos. You just are like, okay, well, yeah, we'll
go around and ask every that rules instead of like
I don't know. And that's a weird minor point, but

(41:57):
that that seems like an important way of doing it. Yeah.
Everything they did with like this, everything they did was
communal and sort of like ground up organized. It was
organized by an organizing committee that comprised some government officials,
a lot of union officials, and then people from these
various sports organizations. So they did it like you would
do your your union stuff. Um so the French rail unions,

(42:22):
for instance, also club together and they won't got a
charge anyone coming through France on the trains, right like free?
Then yeah, it was amazing everyone who they could travel
on the trams free in Barcelona because the Transport Union
were down with it with the Olympics, Like, they could
eat for free in various places. So what if we
had a whole society built on this idea? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(42:44):
well we would tried, didn't we really? Yeah, we tried,
really tried. So they could take free buses around town.
The stadium held seventy two people, the Botanical Garden for
another venue, and they had a network of esperantist translators
right to bridge the language gaps between participants, so that yeah,

(43:04):
it's very cool. And the last living participant in the
Popular Olympics with a guy called it Guidor Vivanco's he
was an esperantist and he died last year in Canada
before I was able to go and meet him because
of the pandemic. He was living in an old folks home. Yeah, yeah,
but this is deeply cool guy who's like he was.
He was sixteen when the Popula Olympics happened, right he was,

(43:25):
he'd already tat himself esperanto. He was out there trying
to translate, so you know, working people of the world
could could meet each other and then obviously gets swept
up into Spanish Civil War ends up living in Canada.
Like to his dying day, remained dedicated to this idea
that if we could all speak one language and the
working people of the world would stick up for one another.
And yeah, it's it's it's sad that we've kind of

(43:46):
lost that a little bit along the way. Yeah, and
and and from a bottom up point of view, right,
instead of like a top down organization being like you
now everyone, because like we have this like English is
becoming the ironically Lingua franco, but like that's this like
top down imperial and position versus this idea of like
this thing that can connect us, even if it's like

(44:08):
I don't know how the Esperanto saw it, but in
my mind it would be like beautiful if it was.
Instead of being like this is everyone's first language, it's
like this is everyone's second language. This is how everyone
can cross reference and connect without abandoning your culture and identity.
Yeah that's what. Yeah, Esperanto is definitely like it's not
supposed to be like your primary language, and it's very simple,

(44:29):
it's very easy to speak, and it gets designed to
facilitate that communication without taking a place in another language.
It's really cool. Yeah, Olympics were very much a other
place where gender equality was celebrated at lea started Berlin.
Right after watching women's world record break on the track
in one reporter for the Pittsburgh Press wrote, it was

(44:50):
not a very edifying spectacle to see a group of
fine girls running themselves into a state of exhaustion, and
probably thereafter they stopped women from running more than two left,
they I don't know, lose their feminine charms. So his

(45:12):
face looks deeply sad. So the popular Olympics are con
slightly different approach, right and one of their letters, they wrote,
the picture of the People's Olympiad would not be complete
if women did not have heard you place in it,
particularly in Spain. It's women far from being free. The
sport and above all sports of a popular character. It's
one of the best and most important means of achieving
women's liberation cannot be open to doubt. The participation of

(45:36):
many women in the Popular Olympiad is therefore one of
the most important objects, which is great institution has to fulfill.
And so they were. They were pretty pretty based in
their regard. One of the groups that helped organize it
was called the Catalan Feminists and Sports Club. Okay, so look,
I think we spent a little bit about before how
they had overlap with heads libres who are like the

(45:58):
free women. It's one of these. Like one of the
women who was part of this was Marina Janesta, who's
the woman everybody's seen like standing on top of the
building with the mauser, Like if you've seen one picture
of interesting, Yeah, she was a war correspondent and she
wasn't wasn't a fighter. There's actually a really good photo

(46:19):
of her with the routie and she's translating for the
routie into French so he can speak to someone else. Oh,
I've heard such a different That makes me very happy
because I've I've always heard that that picture as someone
who was like in the street fighting against the anarchists,
like during the when the communists and the anarchists were fighting. No,
she um, she was. She was a walk correspondent that

(46:40):
we are. That makes me a way happier. The person
you were thinking of is someone else, And I think
about different photo. No you're not, you're thinking of the
same photo and I think it's not an uncommon thing
to hear, but they're distinct individuals. Okay, great. So the
Barcelona Games had longer races for women basketball tennis events.
They also had events so it would consider a lady

(47:01):
like like shot put and javelin and shin kicking. Yeah,
but of course that was just a fun everyone went
to shine kicking. You kind of have medals for it.
So another unique event they had was a mass relay race,
which is really cool. The mass relay race pits the
entire team of a nation against another nation, So like

(47:22):
there's a twenty by fifty running race and like no
one had twenty running athletes, right, so you've got like
boxes and white ship Okay, cool. Yeah, it's got like
a real school sports day vibe. They also had a
ten ever so sad because it wasn't chess one of
the games. They'd be so sad, like, yeah, now the

(47:46):
relay and I'd be like, I'm sick, okay, go into
there playing my nails in the corner. Yeah. The mathletes
really let the team down in a mass running relay.
But there's a reason for this, right. They had a
ten by fifth Do you meet a swimming event as well.
And the reason for this is because they didn't want
to reward like one or two exceptional athletes, like genetic freaks.

(48:10):
They wanted to reward the nation which has elevated the
well being of its working class the highest right. So
if if your runners can also swim, that's because working
class people can swim where you're from. That means that
working class kids won't drown, and so you you get
to win, right, Like the goal is to emphasize the
popular calendar at the Games. There were, yeah, there were

(48:30):
other weird events. I mean there was a weeklong chess tournament,
there were folklore exhibitions, the building of Catlan human towers,
which is a great Catlan tradition, and Scottish country dancing
would accompany the games. They they were also is why
why Scottish country dancing? Because I'm like, I've run across that,

(48:51):
like like the Russian nihilists like sixty years earlier, had
been really obsessed with like Scottish fashion. Was there like
some weird Scottish working class thing going on that everyone
was into, or I mean there were you'll see these
working class Scots pot back up in like the International
Brigades and stuff. I think it's more of a celebration
of the diversity of the Popular Front. So they also

(49:14):
bought a bunch of bagpipers with them, and they had
all these folklore exhibitions the way to be like we're
European and but we were like ethnically inclusive. So here's
the Scots they were. They weren't killed. Some play bagpipes.
They're really weird. We like them. Yeah, yeah, they belong
with it, so I'm just curious. Yeah, So they had
every so like you had Algerians taking part, where you

(49:35):
have people from China, like all these people that are
trying to celebrate the different cultures that form a Popular Front. Read.
Another thing they were very very keen on was having
black people from the United States because they felt that
like the anti fascist struggle with very much inclusive of
the struggle of people living under segregation in the United States.

(49:58):
So they actually paid their way. They didn't pay most
people's way, but they paid for people to come on
boats from United States. That rules, there was no saluting
of flags. Instead. Palka sALS, who I think people might
not be familiar with. He's like the modern He's a
founder of the modern way that people play cellos. Okay, yeah,
he flips it on the side and plays it like

(50:19):
a bass guitar. He doesn't do that. I was like, what,
I've never seen a cell that way. Oh god, I
can do that as a freakishly tall man. I can
play a cello like a bass. And it doesn't go
down well with chellis. If you pick one up, start
doing purple or something, yeah, and encourage everyone to try.

(50:39):
If there's a cellist or cello in the home. So yeah, yeah,
what is it without a cellow It's also a great
home defense weapon. If cellow someone in the face and
you just start, you threaten to play cello and everyone's like,
that's why I carry the Equalian. No one nor mess
with me. They're like, oh yeah, I got my little

(50:59):
bag pipe chanter right here, like that that will clearer
room when I have a bagpipe chamber. Then arms reached.
Also really yeah, no way, oh yeah, outstanding stuff, Sophie. Right,
let's say just divert it quickly. I don't. I do not,
and you both are fucking nerves. Don't ever change. I

(51:25):
can't keep the any drums or anything in the space
that I record, but other instruments are fine, the cool
zone media pipes and drums, and now everyone here was
present for the founding of that. So yeah, they had
this this song called the Hint of the Popularlympics. Palka
Salz was going to conduct it. The words written by

(51:48):
your step money Eddi Sagara, who's Catalan poet, and then
the music was written by Hans Eisler. He was a
German Jewish composer who had obviously been forced out of Germany. Right,
And so you're probably wondering, if you're listening, what you
haven't heard of these games before? They seem like they're
pretty cool, and perhaps I think you might have read
about Well, the reason you haven't heard of them was

(52:09):
because they were supposed to begin on the nineteenth of July,
and something else began on the nineteenth of duly th
six and that thing is the Spanish Civil War. So yeah,
it's a little bit sad um. So I think that's
maybe where I want to end this episode with the

(52:30):
beginning of the end. What we want to talk about
next time is that what did these twenty thousand athletes
do when the Spanish Civil War started? Lincoln? They spoiler
and that didn't go home. And they didn't do sports either.
Sport you get to shoot guns, that's the sport they
probably Yeah, they probably did some running. Yeah, and then

(52:54):
then you could really if you could have employed a
shot putter like tactically, that would have been quite quite strung.
You big circle bombs, just ht just start eating. Look
at giant stones, and just to say that in Barcelona
the pavement was never like that because it's cobbled, right,
but they they know the bother fixing it down because
they're always building barricades around here. Yeah, so like people

(53:17):
would just people would crowbar up the stones and throw
them at cops when they were on strike, which I'm
sure they still do this and that makes me happy. Yeah,
I haven't seen it. I think they haven't seen I've
seen barricades. I'm trying to think I've seen a stone barricade.
I went to bust Only with a friend a while
ago now and we've been there for about twenty four hours.

(53:38):
The first time we got tear gas again. It's great.
I missed just so much. Well, do you have anything
like to plug James and or Margaret James e go first. Yeah, sure,
there's a podcast that I do it's called It Could
Happen Here, and you can listen to that also on

(53:59):
your telephone or of a hearing device. Yeah, I think
that's already. I'm unbanned from Twitter again, so you can
find me there. Congratulate. I enjoy posting pictures of Ussolini
hanging out with his friends, and sometimes I get banned
for those. So yeah, James stout, what are you gonna do?

(54:19):
Can't change? Well, how about you? Margaret. Margaret is a
book that's out I know. Well, what's funny is it's
supposed to be out of pre order as of a
week ago. When you're listening to this, but it might
still be in pre order. You might have a last
chance to get a free poster with it, because the
publisher may or may not have um not the printer

(54:43):
of the posters is taking some time. It's called Escape
from Insul Island. It's about people who want to no
longer be on Insul Island. If you want to hear
James play a game based on Escape from Insul Island,
you should check out the podcast Strangers in the Tangled
Wilderness that ran a live play of the gang from

(55:06):
It Could Happen Here playing Escape from Insul Island and
it's more fun than it's actually I think that sounds fun.
I'm just not saying it very enthusiastically. I know. I'm
sad Sophie wasn't playing. Yeah, Sophie hates roleplaying games. I

(55:29):
was the people who played him. Yeah, somebody has to
work around here, Margaret, Sure, it's fun commiss No, it
certainly can't. And you can follow me on Twitter, where
I somehow have not banned. I feel like I'm not
trying hard enough at Magpie Killjoy or Instagram at Margaret Killjoy.

(55:52):
And you can learn about turtles by observing that you
can from a distance. Yeah, don't work with turtles or
send me pictures of your plants. That's my plug. Yeah,
I want to see them, especially turtle plant. Send them

(56:13):
to me on Twitter. Yeah, if you have a string
of turtle, send it to me. But not someone making
one out of real turtles. That will make everyone very angry. Plant. Yeah. Yeah,
that's there, Like like one of them is chomping on
the next one's tail, and then the next one chomping
on the next one's time. God, turtles are so cute,
I know. Could you imagine them doing well We'll be

(56:36):
back Wednesday for the next episode of Teenage Mutant. That's
trademarked talk to You Later. Cool People Who Did Cool
Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. But more
podcasts on cool Zone Media, Visit our website cool zone
media dot com, or check us out on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your

(56:59):
podcasts and I see up y