Bella Ciao
Bella Ciao Became the Anti-Fascist Rally Against Mussolini's Italy. The U.S.'s Non-Violent Rebellion to the Mump-Nazi Reich Needs Its Own Song and Must Contact Congress Today. Be a Pirate.
What originally was an Italian worker’s song written for and sung by striking Northern Italian farm workers became adapted and modified by the anti-fascist partisans of the Committee for National Liberation (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, CLN). Unlike the United States that has three branches of equal government, Italy had been a constitutional monarchy before Mussolini snatched power.
After Benito Mussolini formed and organized his Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF (National Fascist Party), he used the terror and criminality performed by his paramilitary thugs known as the Blackshirts to make Italy and Italians fear and bend to Mussolini. Mussolini and his Blackshirts intimidated and forced Italy’s weak and indecisive king Victor Emmanuel III to appoint him Prime Minister. Unless the king made him prime minister, Mussolni would achieve the office through violence. I would say we all know what happened next, but by the past 10 years in the United States and the election of Vice-President-elect Inmate Number P01135809, I’m no longer sure of that. I’m note even sure that half of America know who Il Duce was.
Like in the United States, autocracy and neo-fascism have risen in Europe for years. When the Italian neo-fascist prime minister Giorgia Meloni appeared at a trade unionist convention, protestors sang “Bella Ciao” before she spoke. While Italy has never dealt with fascism after Mussolini’’s execution, Italians, unlike half of Americans, know their history.
I’ve been aggravated, actually pissed, to keep reading and hearing some of my fellow Americans give into pessimism and defeatism. Depression and demoralization the day after or even a week or two after the election results are understandable. I felt the same because I am a human being. But I knew after feeling and processing those ugly sensations that I had to go on and continue to be active.
I’m angry that it seems like so many of my fellow Americans are disengaging and staying silent. Worse yet, some act like it’s life as usual. If the Greatest Generation during The Great Depression and World War II had that attitude, we never would have risen from economic catastrophe or won World War II. We did defeat the fascists and Nazis that time. Both these historic moments required sacrifice, work and engagement. At the moment, it feels that Americans on average refuse to do any of the three. I won’t refuse. It’s ingrained in my bones.
My father told me when I was 5 about the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing my grandmother and great grandparents because they were Roman Catholic. My great grandfather ran out of his house located in a small Brown County, Indiana town to confront the Klan after they ignited the cross on his lawn. My father told me “Gramps” did not suffer fools gladly and would not hesitate to tell people they were being assholes.
Obviously this impacted and shaped me. Don’t worry. Dad told me this in an age-appropriate manner. Nonetheless, what he revealed was not the usual family lore told to a little white girl. Because of this, I learned about the Klan and white supremacy years before my white school classmates in our rural town.
While they had what later came to be known as white privilege, my great grandparents’ and my grandmother’s whiteness could not spare them the KKK’s evil. Two centuries and one century ago according to some Protestants and all of the KKK and white supremacists, American Roman Catholics were evil, the “other” and unAmerican. Catholics were Papists only loyal to Rome.
Sixty-four years ago, John F. Kennedy’s Roman Catholicism was such a disturbing factor in the Presidential election that he had to assure U.S. voters where his loyalty as an American resided.
Roman Catholics who are or were members of the KKK and support the Mump-Nazi Reich demonstrate not only their ignorance about Catholic history in America but bellow to the world that they are stupid people. I think Joe Flaherty’s Happy Gilmore character expresses my feelings about my fellow Catholics who join the KKK and support the Mump-Nazi Reich best.
Because I have my great grandfather’s fight in my DNA, I know I have a job to do. So do you.
Today the electoral votes are certified. Our work has not ended though. We must remain or become engaged. We must demonstrate moral courage and righteous anger. Democracy is not a spectator sport. As Thom Hartmann says, “Activism begins with you. Democracy begins with you. Get out there! Get active! Tag, you’re it.”
Contact your Congressional representative and two Senators right now via phone or email. Remember to be polite and direct. Use the updated Indivisible Guide. Demand they invoke section 3 under the 14th Amendment and not certify this election. Inmate Number P01135809 is not just a felon and an adjudicated rapist but an adjudicated insurrectionist. We still have power and a voice. Too many Americans forget that. After the Civil War, the Constitution was amended to prevent insurrectionists from taking power.
Be the thorn in the side to the Mump-Nazi Reich and their enablers. Silence, fear, depression and demoralization are what autocrats and fascists want. Founding father Patrick Henry didn’t say “Give me liberty or give me death” because he thought they were some cool words to sew on a flag. He meant them.
Like the Italian partisans, Americans too can adapt a song to use as a rallying anthem for this peaceful rebellion. Perhaps a musician of note with a wide platform can write a new song for the rebellion. Until that happens, one song I think is good to use for
’s rebellion today and days after is Stevie Nicks’s “The Lighthouse.” She wrote it in response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but I think her lyrics remain applicable and relevant.In 2019, NPR presented a list of 10 songs that rallied protest and opposition in other countries. What do you think should be the song in the United States? Paying supporters can share their ideas for songs in the comments.