Alexander FinneganJ.D. Law, Marxist Leninist2yYes.
- Sociopaths with high IQ’s and that come from good families where they are taught cognitive empathy become surgeons, lawyers, and bankers.
- Sociopaths with high IQ’s from abusive families and low socioeconomic status become mafia leaders, high end drug dealers, etc.
- Sociopaths with low IQ’s and abusive poor families become violent, often end up in prison.
- Sociopaths with low IQ’s and good families but working class backgrounds become police officers, join the military, or remain underemployed.
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Jacob Stanley: How Fascism Works
By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, philosopher Jacob Stanley reveals in How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them that the stuff of politics—charged by rhetoric and myth—can quickly become policy and reality. Only by recognizing fascist politics, he argues, may we resist its most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals.
For this conversation Stanley is joined by Harvard associate professor of History Elizabeth Hinton.
Racism makes societies vulnerable to fascism
37:36
look I’m white but it’s in my
self-interest to fight against racism
because it opens my society to fascismAre economics responsible for fascism?
54:22
for family issues back in Ohio and I
54:25
would go through rural Ohio but I see no
54:27
feline annex and I’d see poverty and
54:30
nobody Cambridge you about under and and
54:35
it wasn’t covered you know and so I
54:37
always say follow the money and there’s
54:39
no money in the rural areas and
54:41
globalism works in Boston and San
54:43
Francisco but it doesn’t seem to work in
54:46
rural America and so I always think that
54:49
globalism is doomed and democracy is
54:53
doomed if they can’t figure out a way to
54:55
put rural Americans into this economy
54:59
that doesn’t that that doesn’t seem to
55:02
have happened I was I was in southern
55:04
Ohio and a family gathering in Lebanon
55:07
Ohio and the fireman was talking to me
55:09
in there was part of the group and he
55:11
said he’s retiring early because he
55:13
can’t stand picking up opioid addicts in
55:15
a little talons Ohio with 10,000 people
55:17
he’s got a five six calls a day take
55:21
care of over those people and people
55:23
shooting out in cars
55:25
so yeah and this is little little
55:29
hometown you know Warren Ohio is dead so
55:37
you’re raising a couple different relate
55:39
related points but both very important
55:41
first of all we haven’t talked much
55:42
about political economy and I think it’s
55:45
very important to talk about political
55:46
economy as as a factor also in the
55:50
factor in the far-right movement like
55:52
what’s happening it’s all right now
55:55
fascism is not fascist politics not
55:57
being used to like buttress military
56:00
empire as much as its used to other one
56:04
other than Yemen and so it is but but it
56:07
it’s being used to like funnel money
56:10
into oligarchs hands and blah and sort
56:13
of like throw sand in the face of people
56:14
with genuine economic concerns but the
56:17
OPA
56:18
I mean it’s not just the rural Midwest
56:20
like my partner is a doctor physician in
56:23
New Haven New Haven Connecticut has a
56:25
horrific OPA opioid problem I mean the
56:27
pharmaceutical companies I mean they
56:31
delivered a whole bunch of opioids to a
56:34
lot of people and and it’s a problem
56:37
that is the dhih industrialized areas
56:41
I mean opiates horrific it’s like what
56:44
60,000 deaths last year 70,000 deaths so
56:48
so but and it’s it’s tricky figuring out
56:53
you know Carl Hart’s work would say it’s
56:54
it’s mainly an economic problem you
56:56
solve people’s economic issues and
56:58
they’re not gonna be opioid addicts but
57:02
but but you’re you’re I mean one thing
57:06
about the economic anxiety point is that
57:09
if you look at who was affected by the
57:12
Great Recession the group that was most
57:15
affected by the Great Recession I think
57:16
were people of color but they didn’t
57:18
flee into the arms of fascism you know they
57:20
didn’t start voting for or you know they
57:24
didn’t vote for Trump so I I don’t think
57:27
so it can’t I think that economic and
57:31
and then you look worldwide my book is
57:33
about the world and you look at Poland
57:36
like the Civic Platform in Poland
57:38
like the Civic Platform expanded the GDP
57:41
radically Poland was doing really well
57:43
economically and then law and justice
57:45
came in and did all these tactics and
57:48
one look at Bavaria one of the richest
57:51
areas in the world Bavaria is filled
57:53
with this you say oh say offer so the
57:57
economic anxiety does not match all the
58:00
areas it can explain it can explain why
58:03
some groups in some areas fall prey to
58:06
this politics but looking
58:09
internationally the politics gets a grip
58:13
and even looking nationally because it
58:15
gets a grip on some groups and not the
58:17
other others and if you look at if you
58:19
look at and my book is about why it gets
58:21
a grip when it’s so obviously a false
58:24
promise and so in the United States when
58:26
we talk about the poor working class we
58:28
– we – the white working class we forget
58:31
a chapter and Du Bois as black
58:33
reconstruction is a poor white you know
58:35
we have to talk about the psychological
58:37
wages of whiteness we have to talk about
58:39
and and the response is of course an
58:41
economic response is a labor movement a
58:43
labor movement you know when they smash
58:46
the labor movements in the Upper Midwest
58:48
suddenly people felt much more prey to
58:50
this kind of politics and so you know so
58:55
I think we do face this crisis we need a
58:57
labor movement that’s why they went
58:59
after the labor movement we’re in a
59:01
crisis after the Janice decision and and
59:05
so we have to rebuild the labor we
59:07
wouldn’t give people economic hope I’m
59:09
not sure it’s as globalization as much
59:10
as it’s the lack of a of a of a labor
59:13
movement in the United States
59:14
I mean German manufacturing is doing
59:17
fine and German labor is doing fine
59:22
history and making history no but I
59:26
guess how do you make it known
59:29
given that the I mean given what you’re
59:32
talking about you know the attack on
59:34
truth the discrediting of sources the
59:37
control of educational boards or
59:39
institutions by people who might not be
59:42
in their interest a place you know I
59:43
mean so what I don’t know if that’s I
59:50
mean if doing it’s having conversations
59:54
like this I mean I think it’s it’s it’s
59:56
really up to us and this is like in
59:59
terms of thinking about what is the role
60:00
of academics right now I mean people who
60:03
do research is – it’s one I think that
60:07
qualitative research in general is just
60:09
D legitimized and it’s it’s dismissed as
60:13
not being true despite the fact that you
60:16
know my I don’t use my data doesn’t come
60:18
from surveys it’s not in document since
60:24
the ways in which I’m interpreting those
60:25
documents just like it’s the ways in
60:26
which other people are interpreting
60:27
their quantitative data and so I think
60:30
that you know right now the other kind
60:32
of struggle going on in universities is
60:34
the growing attack in many ways on the
60:39
liberal on liberal arts in general which
60:41
is tied to the developments that Jason
60:43
described so eloquently in the book so I
60:45
think part of it is you know doing the
60:48
work of having discussions like this
60:50
it’s amazing that there’s so many people
60:53
here and we’re having this really engage
60:55
an important discussion that takes a lot
60:57
out of us but that’s I think part of our
61:00
responsibility as as researchers as
61:03
scholars as intellectuals to try to
61:06
write in accessible ways Jason was just
61:08
telling me that he’s been on the radio
61:10
for like ten hours this week that’s
61:13
doing the work that’s doing that
61:14
important work and I think part of the
61:17
difficulty is in many in in many
61:19
instances we we end up kind of preaching
61:21
to the choir you can only go on Berkeley
61:25
radio so many times I mean
61:29
– is also kind of moving into different
61:34
spaces where we might be less
61:35
comfortable when I get invited to speak
61:38
with libertarian or white ring groups
61:40
are I’m happy to go because knowing that
61:44
I might be walking into an abrasive
61:45
situation you know I tried to make my
61:49
book and my research as undeniable as
61:52
possible and I think the argument that
61:53
you’ve laid out in this book is also
61:55
undeniable and that’s how I think we can
61:58
begin to think about re-educating
62:01
correcting the false narratives and
62:04
erasing the untruths the mythic past
62:07
that’s been created in history is I
62:09
think really historical work is really
62:12
key to that we don’t know how we got
62:14
here unless we really really understand
62:16
the past yeah I just want I just want to
62:23
say you know that’s why do boys ends
62:26
ends black reconstruction at the
62:28
propaganda of history and that’s why
62:29
he’s so corny and capitalizes truth you
62:32
know that’s that’s that’s what gets me
62:34
upset when people attack for instance
62:36
african-american studies as as has been
62:39
happening a lot or Gender Studies
62:41
because they’re trying to tell the
62:42
actual truth of a story that’s not told
62:45
and you know and that that’s that’s why
62:48
dude you know Dubois is always so corny
62:50
about truth see like he’s like you know
62:52
when you know erasure and erasure is
62:55
never truth you know so and of course
62:59
the backlash is always like a little bit
63:01
of like at Yale what happened the I mean
63:04
I could have told my colleagues the
63:05
English department they added googy Wafi
63:07
Unga this this goes back to you they had
63:08
a GUI hua Theon go to one course and and
63:12
there were like 20 articles from
63:14
right-wing media about how they’re
63:15
eliminating Shakespeare at Yale and it
63:18
hit them so by surprise I was like my
63:21
colleagues in the English department
63:21
like what happened what happened we’re
63:23
gonna go as death threats I’m like yeah
63:25
you added an African writer to a
63:28
required course you know so that’s the
63:32
and we we have academic administrators
63:34
here they can tell you about this but
63:36
there’s there’s you know the very ID so
63:39
true like multiple perspective
63:41
which doesn’t mean multiple perspectives
63:43
doesn’t mean there’s many truths there’s
63:45
only one truth that’s why Dubois
63:47
capitalizes it but the truth involves
63:49
you know that the Nate what happened to
63:52
the indigenous populations as well as
63:55
what happened to Dale Carnegie
64:02
[Music]
64:07
[Applause]
How two Soviet-born emigres made it into elite Trump circles — and the center of the impeachment storm
The contribution helped propel Parnas and his business partner, Belarus-born Igor Fruman, on an extraordinarily rapid rise into the upper echelon of Trump allies — before they became central figures in the presidential impeachment inquiry.
By spring 2018, the two men had
- dined with Trump,
- breakfasted with his son and
- attended exclusive events at Mar-a-Lago and the White House, all while
- jetting around the world and spending lavishly, particularly at Trump hotels in New York and Washington. That May, a pro-Trump super PAC reported receiving a $325,000 donation from an energy company the duo had recently formed.
Where Parnas and Fruman got their money remains a mystery. When they were arrested Wednesday on allegations of campaign finance violations, prosecutors alleged that Parnas and Fruman were backed in part by an unnamed Russian national who used them to funnel donations to state and federal candidates.
This summer, Parnas had begun working as a translator for the legal team of Dmytro Firtash, an Ukrainian gas tycoon who faces bribery charges in the United States, according to Victoria Toensing, one of Firtash’s lawyers. The energy magnate has been accused by federal prosecutors of having ties to Russian organized crime and has been fighting extradition to the United States from Austria. Firtash has denied wrongdoing.
As they scaled the ranks of Trump’s Washington, Parnas and Fruman demonstrated a remarkable facility for capitalizing on their newfound connections, according to people who observed them. They also appeared to be constantly in pursuit of new business ventures — “always hustling,” in the words of one Trump ally who interacted with them.
In 2018, they hired the president’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to serve as a consultant as they launched a security business — and then helped Giuliani, in turn, reach Ukrainian officials in his quest to find information damaging to Democrats.
During a visit to Israel last summer sponsored by a pro-Israel charity, Parnas and Fruman were “mega-dropping Rudy’s name” as they snapped photos with well-known figures, according to former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who was also on the trip.
“ ‘We’re best friends with Rudy Giuliani,’ ” Scaramucci said the two men told him. “ ‘We work with him on everything.’ ”
Giuliani’s ties to the duo are now under scrutiny by both federal prosecutors and congressional investigators seeking to unravel how two businessmen trailed by creditors and failed past ventures came to be at the center of an expanding international drama.
Giuliani has denied knowledge of any wrongdoing. He said Friday that he had seen the two men “quite often.”
“I have no reason to believe that they are anything other than decent guys,” he said.
Parnas and Fruman, who made a brief court appearance Thursday in Alexandria, have not entered a plea to the charges against them.
Their new lawyer, John Dowd — who also previously served as a personal attorney for Trump — declined to respond to a number of questions about the two men, writing only in an email, “You publish at your peril.”
Elite Trump circles
Parnas, 47, was born in Ukraine but moved with his family to the U.S. as a child and grew up in Brooklyn. He told The Washington Post in an interview conducted before his arrest that he got his start in real estate, selling Trump condos for Donald Trump’s father, Fred, then worked in shipping in the former Soviet Union before becoming a securities trader. He moved to Florida in the mid-1990s.
ADPeople who encountered the two men in recent years said that Parnas did most of the talking and seemed to be the public face of their U.S. partnership. But Parnas told The Post that Fruman was the one with especially deep connections in Ukraine.
Born in Belarus, Fruman, 53, owns a luxury jewelry business, a luxury car dealership and a hotel in Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea. He also owns an import-export business based in New York.
Both men have been trailed by financial problems, including a lawsuit filed against them earlier this year claiming they had failed to repay a $100,000 loan in 2018. The suit has been settled.
Parnas told The Post that he got involved in the Trump campaign because he admired the real estate developer, whom he said he had met several times before the election.
“I was really passionate about the president,” he said. “I started really believing that he could really make a change and make it happen. Then I jumped on the campaign, donated money and became a really big believer.”
Now, Parnas said, “I think he’s going to go down as one of the greatest presidents ever, even with all this negativity.”
As for Giuliani, Parnas said he had met the former New York mayor during the campaign but that the relationship “bonded and built over time.”
“We’re just very close,” he said, calling Giuliani “a very good friend.”
Giuliani said Friday that he recalls first meeting Parnas and Fruman in “mid-to-late 2018” after a lawyer who is a friend referred them to him.
At the time, Giuliani said, the men were ramping up a company called Fraud Guarantee, which would use specialized software to identify possible fraud in companies.
AD“I know a lot about cybersecurity,” he said. “So they wanted my advice.”
Giuliani said his security consulting firm did “intense” work for the two men in 2018 and 2019, providing paid advice on how to structure their company.
Around the same time, the two men began to appear regularly at elite Trump-related events and started to track their travels on Facebook and Instagram. Their posts have now been deleted, but were captured by BuzzFeed and other news organizations before they were taken down.
Fruman posted photos of himself at a Republican National Committee fundraiser at Trump’s estate Mar-a-Lago in March 2018. In one, he was standing in front of a Florida flag next to Trump, who offered two thumbs up for the camera.
That May, Parnas posted photos and videos on Facebook that he wrote were taken at the White House, including one of him beaming as he stood next to the president between two American flags, giving a thumbs-up. “Thank you President Trump !!!” he wrote, adding, “incredible dinner and even better conversation.”
Ten days later, Fruman told the Brooklyn-based Russian-language publication Jewish World that the two men had been part of a group of just eight people who met privately with the president and discussed the upcoming midterm elections. Fruman said he also had discussed Ukraine-U.S. relations at the dinner.
White House officials declined to comment on the event.
Later that month, Parnas posted a photo of himself and Fruman breakfasting at the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge with Donald Trump Jr. and Tommy Hicks Jr., a close friend of the president’s son and top RNC official. “#Trump2020,” he captioned the photo.
An attorney for Trump Jr. declined to comment. Hicks did not respond to requests for comment.
In an exchange with reporters outside the White House on Thursday, Trump said he doesn’t know Parnas and Fruman, dismissing the photos of himself with the two men.
“I don’t know those gentlemen,” Trump said. “Now, it’s possible I have a picture with them, because I have a picture with everybody. . . . I don’t know about them; I don’t know what they do. I don’t know, maybe they were clients of Rudy. You’d have to ask Rudy.”
Parnas and Fruman were also patrons of the president’s hotel.
In one five-week period between September 2018 and October 2018, the two men racked up more than $13,000 in charges at the Trump hotels in New York and Washington, according to a person familiar with their finances, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private information.
In December, they attended a White House Hanukkah party, posting a photo on social media that includes Giuliani, Trump and Vice President Pence. A White House aide said the event was attended by hundreds of people.
The two men also began donating liberally to federal and state political committees, including a $325,000 contribution in May 2018 to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.
All told, the two and their energy firm contributed at least $630,000 to federal GOP candidates and PACs since 2016, campaign finance filings show.
The money also flowed to candidates in Nevada, Texas, West Virginia and Florida. Prosecutors now allege the campaign contributions were part of an illegal scheme to funnel foreign money to “buy potential influence with candidates, campaigns and the candidates’ governments,” according to the indictment.
The two men, along with two other associates, are charged with laundering money through corporate bank accounts and using straw donors to obscure the source of their funds, including illegal foreign contributions.
Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for America First Action, said the super PAC is placing the contribution it received in a segregated bank account “until these matters are resolved. We take our legal obligations seriously and scrupulously comply with the law.”
Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, said: “As the indictment states, neither the President nor the [Trump] campaign were aware of the allegations.”
Pitching a gas deal
Over the same period that they were cultivating political ties, Parnas and Fruman were involved with a dizzying array of business pursuits.
Apart from Fraud Guarantee, they planned to launch a recreational marijuana business in states such as Nevada with the Russian national, according to the indictment.
Parnas also received tens of thousands of dollars last year from the firm of Brian Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist who is close to Trump, according to a person familiar with Parnas’s finances. Another person familiar with the arrangement said Parnas was paid to refer possible clients, but none were connected to Ukraine.
In April 2018, the two men incorporated their new company, Global Energy Producers, which purportedly intended to sell liquefied natural gas. Quickly, the two began an effort to export American gas into Ukraine through Poland.
Efforts to bring more U.S. gas to Europe — particularly Ukraine, to reduce its dependence on Russian energy — have been a priority for the Trump administration.
Neither Parnas nor Fruman had any particular experience in the energy world, but at an energy conference in Houston in March, they made a pitch to Ukrainian state oil and gas giant Naftogaz.
Parnas and Fruman approached a top official at Naftogaz, Andrew Favorov, regarding their venture, according Dale W. Perry, an American businessman close to Favorov, as well as another a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition on anonymity to describe the private conversation.
Then, in a conversation first reported by the Associated Press, Parnas and Fruman pitched their LNG business and their hope to soon see new leadership at Naftogaz that would be receptive to their proposal. They asserted that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who opposed replacing the company’s chief executive, would soon be gone.
By May, Yovanovitch had been abruptly recalled from her post on Trump’s orders.
The implication, according to the person familiar with the meeting, was that the men would help Favorov take the top job at Naftogaz and then begin selling LNG to the Ukrainian state gas conglomerate.
Favorov declined the offer, Perry said. He said the Naftogaz official, a former business partner, contacted him soon afterward and described the encounter, which Favorov told Perry made him deeply uncomfortable.
Favorov and Perry were particularly concerned by the efforts of private businessmen with personal motivations to push for the ouster of Yovanovitch, who they view as a conscientious public servant, Perry said.
“If she can be removed, then anything is possible now,” Perry said. “Where is the rule of law? Where is the stability?” Favorov could not be reached for comment.
Parnas, speaking to The Post before his arrest, said nothing ultimately came of his efforts to launch the LNG venture in Ukraine, in part because of the attention he and Fruman received for their political activities with Giuliani.
“Now everybody is scared to do business with us,” Parnas said.
Backing Giuliani’s efforts
The campaign against Yovanovitch was embraced by Giuliani as part of his broader effort to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations into Trump’s political rivals. Parnas and Fruman assisted him in that project.
“They were helping me a lot in Ukraine,” Giuliani said Friday.
According to Parnas, he was sitting at lunch with Giuliani in late 2018 when the former New York mayor was approached by an American with information about Ukraine. On learning of Giuliani’s interest in Ukraine, Parnas said he then worked to connect Giuliani with people in Ukraine who had information he believed could assist the effort.
“Me just being next to him, me being Russian speaking and having business there and knowing the culture and also knowing a lot of individuals and having a lot of relationships somehow just basically steamrolled into me taking an active role as a patriotic duty,” Parnas said. “And here we are now.”
Parnas has said he helped set up a call for Giuliani in January 2019 with Viktor Shokin, a former Ukrainian prosecutor who has alleged that he was fired in 2016 for investigating a company whose board included former vice president Biden’s son Hunter. Parnas said he and Fruman also connected Giuliani with Yuriy Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s top prosecutor until August.
“We took it upon ourselves as our patriotic duty, basically, whatever information we could get, to pass it on and to basically validate it as best as we could,” Parnas said.
Among other topics, Parnas has said he and Giuliani discussed Yovanovich, who was removed from her position in May on Trump’s orders after a whisper campaign that she was disloyal to the president.
Prosecutors said Thursday that Parnas’s efforts to remove Yovanovich came “at least in part at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”
In recent months, Parnas has become even more financially entangled with Giuliani and his allies.
In an interview, Toensing said she and her husband, attorney Joe diGenova, retained Parnas this summer to work as a translator as they represent Firtash, who has been charged in Illinois with bribing Indian officials related to mining interests in that country. He is fighting extradition to the U.S. from Austria.
Firtash, who U.S. prosecutors have alleged in court documents is an “upper-echelon” associate of Russian organized crime, has denied wrongdoing. Earlier this year, he hired Toensing and diGenova, who appear frequently on Fox News and are close to Giuliani.
Toensing said she was “outraged” by the Justice Department charges against her client, adding that “the Indian government has investigated” the bribery claim and filed no charges in the case. She said Firtash’s Austrian extradition case included testimony from investigators who found that he had “no ties to organized crime.”
Toensing said she met Parnas through Giuliani and tapped him “to be our translator to review documents and to help with Ukraine,” noting that “he speaks Russian and our client does not speak English.”
Parnas and Fruman’s myriad political and business ventures came to an abrupt halt Wednesday.
The duo had lunched that day with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hours later, they were at Dulles Airport, about to board a plane to Europe, when authorities in the hallway stopped them and asked to see their passports, according to a person who saw the encounter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
Soon, the person said, about a dozen plainclothes investigators converged on the scene, and the two men were led away.
Monty Python Mafia vs Army
The mob threatens the army: it would be a shame if something happened ..
(Stock film of the amy. Tanks rolling, troops moving forward etc. Stirring military music.)
Voice Over: In 1943, a group of British Army Officers working deep behind enemy lines, carried out one of the most dangerous and heroic raids in the history of warfare. But that’s as maybe. And now . . .
(Superimposed Caption on Screen : ‘AND NOW . . . UNOCCUPIED BRITAIN I970′ Cut to colonel’s office. Colonel is seated at desk.)
Colonel: (Graham Chapman) Come in, what do you want?
(Private Watkins enters and salutes.)
Watkins: (Eric Idle) I’d like to leave the army please, sir.
Colonel: Good heavens man, why?
Watkins: It’s dangerous.
Colonel: What?
Watkins: There are people with guns out there, sir.
Colonel: What?
Watkins: Real guns, sir. Not toy ones, sir. Proper ones, sir. They’ve all got ’em. All of ’em, sir. And some of ’em have got tanks.
Colonel: Watkins, they are on our side.
Watkins: And grenades, sir. And machine guns, sir. So I’d like to leave, sir, before I get killed, please.
Colonel: Watkins, you’ve only been in the army a day.
Watkins: I know sir but people get killed, properly dead sir, no barely cross fingers sir. A bloke was telling me, if you’re in the army and there’s a war you have to go and fight.
Colonel: That’s true.
Watkins: Well I mean, blimey, I mean if it was a big war somebody could be hurt.
Colonel: Watkins why did you join the army?
Watkins: For the water-skiing and for the travel, sir. And not for the killing, sir. I asked them to put it on my form, sir – no killing.
Colonel: Watkins are you a pacifist?
Watkins: No sir, I’m not a pacifist, sir. I’m a coward.
Colonel: That’s a very silly line. Sit down.
Watkins: Yes sir. Silly, sir. (sits in corner)
Colonel: Awfully bad.
(Knock at the door, sergeant enters, and salutes.)
Sergeant: (John Cleese) Two civilian gentlemen to see you sir!
Colonel: Show them in please, sergeant.
Sergeant: Mr Dino Vercotti and Mr Luigi Vercotti.
(The Vercotti brothers enter. They wear Mafia suits and dark glasses.)
Dino: (Terry Jones) Good morning, Colonel.
Colonel: Good morning gentlemen. Now what can I do for you.
Luigi: (Michael Palin) (looking round office casually) You’ve… you’ve got a nice army base here, Colonel.
Colonel: Yes.
Luigi: We wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.
Colonel: What?
Dino: No, what my brother means is it would be a shame if… (he knocks something off mantel)
Colonel: Oh.
Dino: Oh sorry, Colonel.
Colonel: Well don’t worry about that. But please do sit down.
Luigi: No, we prefer to stand, thank you, Colonel.
Colonel: All right. All right. But what do you want?
Dino: What do we want, ha ha ha.
Luigi: Ha ha ha, very good, Colonel.
Dino: The Colonel’s a joker, Luigi.
Luigi: Explain it to the Colonel, Dino.
Dino: How many tanks you got, Colonel?
Colonel: About five hundred altogether.
Luigi: Five hundred, eh?
Dino: You ought to be careful, Co1onel.
Colonel: We are careful, extremely careful.
Dino: ‘Cos things break, don’t they?
Colonel: Break?
Luigi: Well everything breaks, don’t it Colonel. (he breaks something on desk) Oh dear.
Dino: Oh see my brother’s clumsy Colonel, and when he gets unhappy he breaks things. Like say, he don’t feel the army’s playing fair by him, he may start breaking things, Colonel.
Colonel: What is all this about?
Luigi: How many men you got here, Colonel?
Colonel: Oh, er… seven thousand infantry, six hundred artillery, and er, two divisions of paratroops.
Luigi: Paratroops, Dino.
Dino: Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.
Colonel: Set fire to them?
Luigi: Fires happen, Colonel.
Dino: Things burn.
Colonel: Look, what is all this about?
Dino: My brother and I have got a little proposition for you Colonel.
Luigi: Could save you a lot of bother.
Dino: I mean you’re doing all right here aren’t you, Colonel?
Luigi: Well suppose some of your tanks was to get broken and troops started getting lost, er, fights started breaking out during general inspection, like.
Dino: It wouldn’t be good for business would it, Colonel?
Colonel: Are you threatening me?
Dino: Oh, no, no, no.
Luigi: Whatever made you think that, Colonel?
Dino: The Colonel doesn’t think we’re nice people, Luigi.
Luigi: We’re your buddies, Colonel.
Dino: We want to look after you.
Colonel: Look after me?
Luigi: We can guarantee you that not a single armoured division will get done over for fifteen bob a week.
Colonel: No, no, no.
Luigi: Twelve and six.
Colonel: No, no, no.
Luigi: Eight and six… five bob.
Colonel: No, no this is silly.
Dino: What’s silly?
Colonel: No, the whole premise is silly and it’s very badly written. I’m the senior officer here and I haven’t had a funny line yet. So I’m stopping it.
Dino: You can’t do that!
Colonel: I’ve done it. The sketch is over.
Watkins: I want to leave the army please sir, it’s dangerous.
Colonel: Look, I stopped your sketch five minutes ago. So get out of shot. Right director! Close up. Zoom in on me. (camera zooms in) That’s better.
Luigi: (off screen) It’s only ‘cos you couldn’t think of a punch line.
Colonel: Not true, not true. It’s time for the cartoon. Cue telecine, ten, nine, eight…
(Cut to telecine countdown.)
Dino: (off screen) The general public’s not going to understand this, are they?
Colonel: (off screen) Shut up you eyeties!