SILVER LEGION OF AMERICA, by Wikipedia

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SILVER LEGION OF AMERICA, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Oct 21, 2015 9:37 am

Silver Legion of America
by Wikipedia

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The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an American fascist organization founded by William Dudley Pelley on January 30, 1933, coincidentally, the same day Adolf Hitler, whom Pelley admired, seized power in Germany.

American Silver Shirts

The Silver Legion’s emblem was a scarlet 'L'. It stood for Loyalty to the American Republic, Liberation from materialism and, of course, the Silver Legion itself.

The uniform of the Silver Legion members consisted of a campaign hat, blue corduroy trousers, leggings, tie, and silver shirt with a scarlet "L" over the heart. Pelley hoped to seize power in a 'silver revolution' and set himself up as dictator of the United States.

The Book predicts that “one cometh after him” who would succeed. This is generally conceded to refer to Crowley’s student C.S. Jones, who did indeed uncover a key to the text some years later. The cipher or ‘code’ implied by the key was recorded by Jones in his magical diary for October 31st, 1918. A careful reading of this footnote reveals that the letters A, L and W, in some sequence, form the first three letters of a cipher.

Since the number Eleven is more than hinted at in The Book of the Law itself as a ‘key’ it theoretically is easy enough to note that, in standard alphabetical sequence, there are eleven spaces between A and L, and another eleven between L and W.

But many decades were to pass before a group in England calling itself the OAA, and its American counterpart, QBLH, were to complete the sequence and “obtain the order and value of the English Alphabet” as called for in The Book of the Law itself.

“This key we have been considering,” says an article in Thelema in 1980, “can be understood from either of two courses. 11 is the number of Magick, and when we number every 11th letter of the Alphabet, we arrive with ALW…P.”


-- Secret Rituals of the Men in Black, by Allen Greenfield


By 1934, the Silver Shirts had about 15,000 members. Most members were of the lower classes. The movement's strength dwindled after 1934. Four years later, the Silver Legion's membership was down to about 5,000. In 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war on the United States by Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy led to the immediate collapse of the Silver Legion.

In fiction

• A fictionalized depiction of the Silver Shirts forms a large part of the plot in the thriller The Night Letter by Paul Spike.
• The Silver Shirts are also a British political movement in Harry Turtledove's American Empire and Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels. They are likely an analog of the British Union of Fascists, as Oswald Mosley is a prominent leader.

References

• The Millenarian Right: William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Legion of America by John Werly (Ph.D. diss. Syracuse University, 1972)
• Ribuffo, Leo Pual, Protestants on the Right: William Dudley Pelley, Gerald B. Winrod and Gerald L.K. Smith, two volumes, Yale University, 1976 Liberation magazine, January 1936, New York City Library
• Spivak, John L., Secret Armies: The New Technique of Nazi Warfare, Modern Age Books, New York, 1939.
• Yeadon, Glen (2008). The Nazi Hydra in America. Progressive Press. pp. 700. ISBN 0-930852-43-5.
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Re: SILVER LEGION OF AMERICA, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Wed Oct 21, 2015 9:39 am

William Dudley Pelley
by Wikipedia

Image
William Dudley Pelley
Description: Age, approximately fifty years; height, five feet, seven inches; weight, 130 pounds; has black hair mixed with gray; heavy eyebrows; wears mustache and a vandyke; has dark gray eyes, very penetrating; has straight Roman nose; wears nose glasses; dresses neatly; distinguished looking; good talker; highly educated; interested in physic research.
Capias has been issued by the Judge of the Superior Court of Buncombe County for the arrest of the above-named party for sentence on conviction of felony, making fraudulent representation, and also for violating the terms of a suspended sentence on another charge by failing to remain of good behavior, and by engaging in, among other things, UN-AMERICAN activities.
Arrest and notify LAURENCE E. BROWN, Sheriff, Asheville, N.C.


William Dudley Pelley (March 12, 1890 – June 30, 1965) was an American extremist and spiritualist who founded the Silver Legion in 1933, and ran for President in 1936 for the Christian Party.

Family

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, William Dudley Pelley grew up in poverty. He was the son of William George Apsey Pelley and his wife Grace Goodale. His father was initially a Southern Methodist Church minister, later a small businessman and shoemaker.[1]

Early career

Largely self-educated, Pelley became a journalist and gained respect for his writing skills, his articles eventually appearing in national publications. Two of his short stories received O. Henry awards, "The Face in the Window" in 1920, and "The Continental Angle" in 1930.[2] Following World War I, Pelley traveled throughout Europe and Asia as a foreign correspondent. He particularly spent a great deal of time in Russia and witnessed atrocities of the Russian Civil War. His experiences in Russia left him with a deep hatred for Communism and Jews, whom he believed were planning to conquer the world.[3]

Upon returning to the United States in 1920, Pelley went to Hollywood, where he became a screenwriter, writing the Lon Chaney films The Light in the Dark and The Shock.[4] By 1929, Pelley became disillusioned with the movie industry, and moved to Asheville, North Carolina.

In 1928, Pelley said he had a near-death experience, detailed in an article for American Magazine called "My Seven Minutes in Eternity." In later writings, Pelley described the experience as "hypo-dimensional."[5] He wrote that during this event, he met with God and Jesus Christ, who instructed him to undertake the spiritual transformation of America. He later claimed the experience gave him the ability to levitate, see through walls, and have out-of-body experiences at will. His metaphysical writings greatly boosted Pelley's public visibility. Some of the original members of the original Ascended Master Teachings religion, the "I AM" Activity, were recruited from the ranks of William Dudley Pelley’s organization the Silver Legion. [6]

Political involvement

When the Great Depression struck America in 1929, Pelley became active in politics. After moving to Asheville, Pelley founded Galahad College in 1932. The college specialized in correspondence, "Social Metaphysics," and "Christian Economics" courses. He also founded Galahad Press, which he used to publish various political and metaphysical magazines, newspapers, and books.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Pelley, an admirer of Hitler, was inspired to found the Silver Legion, an extremist and antisemitic organization whose followers (known as the Silver Shirts and "Christian Patriots") wore Nazi-like silver uniforms. The Silver Legion's emblem was a scarlet L, which was featured on their flags and uniforms. Pelley founded chapters of the Silver Legion in almost every state in the country, and soon gained a considerable number of followers.[7]

Pelley traveled throughout the United States and holding mass rallies, lectures, and public speeches in order to attract Americans to his organization. Pelley's political ideology consisted of anti-Communism, antisemitism, racism, extreme patriotism, isolationism, pyramidology and British Israelism[8], themes which were the primary focus of his numerous magazines and newspapers, which included Liberation, Pelley's Silvershirt Weekly, The Galilean, and The New Liberator.

Pelley was also a committed Protestant and opponent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, and founded the Christian Party, running for president in 1936. His pro-fascist advocacy angered Roosevelt and his supporters, and charges were drawn up against the Silver Shirts in 1940. His Asheville headquarters was raided by federal marshals, his followers there arrested, and his property seized. Pelley was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Despite serious financial and material setbacks to his organization resulting from lengthy court battles, Pelley continued to oppose Roosevelt, especially as the diplomatic relationships of the United States with the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany became more strained in the early 1940s. Pelley accused Roosevelt of being a warmonger and advocated isolationism, stances which would give political ammunition to the enemies of fellow isolationist Charles Lindbergh (according to A. Scott Berg's biography, Lindbergh had never even met Pelley). Roosevelt enlisted J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to investigate Pelley for libel, and the FBI interviewed Pelley's subscribers.[9] Although the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 led Pelley to disband the Silver Legion, Pelley continued to attack the government with a magazine called Roll Call,[10] which alarmed Roosevelt, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and the House Un-American Activities Committee. After stating in one issue of Roll Call that the devastation of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was worse than the government claimed, Pelley was arrested at his new base of operations in Noblesville, Indiana and charged with high treason and sedition in April 1942. The sedition charge was dropped, but he was convicted on other charges and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was paroled in 1952.

Later life

In his final years, Pelley dealt with charges of securities fraud that had been brought against him while he had lived in Asheville. Pelley died on June 30, 1965, at the age of 75 in Noblesville, where he is buried.[11]

Trivia

In the 1930s, Pelley predicted that his Silver Legion movement would succeed in wresting America from Jews and the Devil; he claimed the day of his ultimate victory would come on September 17, 2001.[12]

References

• Scott Beekman , "Pelley, William Dudley"
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/ohe ... slist.html
• "45 Questions About the Jews", William Dudley Pelley, 1939.
• IMDb profile for William Dudley Pelley
• Alex Abella and Scott Gordon, Shadow Enemies, The Lyons Press, 2002, ISBN 1-58574-722-X, 320 pages, p. 241.
• Christian Kinnard—Beginnings of the I AM Activity:
• Scott Beekman, William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-wing Extremism and the Occult, Syracuse University Press, 2005, ISBN 0815608195, 269 pages, p. 87.
• Lobb, David, 'Fascist Apocalypse: William Pelley and Millennial Extremism',Paper presented at the 4th Annual Conference of the Center for Millennial Studies, November 1999
• Beekman, p. 125.
• "Strange Doings in Nobleville", Time, January 27, 1941
• William Dudley Pelley at Find A Grave
• Alex Abella and Scott Gordon, Shadow Enemies', The Lyons Press, 2002, ISBN 1-58574-722-X, 320 pages, p. 240.
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Re: SILVER LEGION OF AMERICA, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:35 pm

British Union of Fascists
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/2/18

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
British Union of Fascists
President Oswald Mosley
Founded 1932
Dissolved 1940
Merger of
New Party
Larger part of the British Fascists
Succeeded by Union Movement
Headquarters London, England
Newspaper
Action
The Blackshirt
Paramilitary wing Stewards
Grassroots wing January Club
Ideology
British Fascism
Isolationism
Antisemitism[1]
Political position Far-right
Colours Red, White, Blue

The British Union of Fascists, or BUF, was a fascist political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. It changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to British Union. It was finally disbanded in 1940 after it was proscribed by the British government, following the start of the Second World War.

The BUF emerged in 1932 from the British far-right, following the electoral defeat of its antecedent, the New Party, in the 1931 general election. The BUF's foundation was initially met with popular support and developed a sizeable following. The press baron Lord Rothermere was a notable early supporter. As the party became increasingly radical, however, support declined. The Olympia Rally of 1934, in which a number of anti-Fascist protestors were attacked, isolated the party from much of its following. The party's embrace of Nazi-style anti-semitism in 1936 led to increasingly violent clashes with opponents, notably the 1936 Battle of Cable Street in London's East End. The Public Order Act 1936, which banned political uniforms and responded to increasing political violence, had a particularly strong effect on the BUF whose supporters were known as "Blackshirts" after the uniforms they wore.

Growing British hostility towards Nazi Germany, with which the British press persistently associated the BUF, further contributed to the decline of the movement's membership. It was finally banned by the British government in 1940 after the start of the Second World War, amid suspicion that its remaining supporters might form a pro-Nazi "fifth column". A number of prominent BUF members were arrested and interned under Defence Regulation 18B.

History

Background


Image
Flowchart showing the history of the early British fascist movement.

Oswald Mosley was the youngest elected Conservative MP before crossing the floor in 1922, joining first Labour and, shortly afterwards, the Independent Labour Party. He became a minister in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government, advising on rising unemployment.[citation needed]

In 1930, Mosley issued his Mosley Memorandum, which fused protectionism with a proto-Keynesian programme of policies designed to tackle the unemployment problem, and he resigned from the Labour party soon after, in early 1931, when the plans were rejected. He immediately formed the New Party, with policies based on his memorandum. Despite winning 16% of the vote at a by-election in Ashton-under-Lyne in early 1931, however, the party failed to achieve any other electoral success.[citation needed]

During 1931, the New Party became increasingly influenced by Fascism.[2] The next year, after a January 1932 visit to Benito Mussolini in Italy, Mosley's own conversion to fascism was confirmed. He wound up the New Party in April, but preserved its youth movement, which would form the core of the BUF, intact. He spent the summer that year writing a fascist programme, The Greater Britain, and this formed the basis of policy of the BUF, which was launched in October 1932.[2]

Early success and growth

Image
Italy's Duce Benito Mussolini (left) with Leader Oswald Mosley (right) during Mosley's visit to Italy in 1936.

The BUF claimed 50,000 members at one point,[3] and the Daily Mail, running the headline "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!", was an early supporter.[4] The first Director of Propaganda, appointed in February 1933, was Wilfred Risdon, who was responsible for organising all of Mosley's public meetings. Despite strong resistance from anti-fascists, including the local Jewish community, the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party, and the Communist Party of Great Britain, the BUF found a following in the East End of London, where in the London County Council elections of March 1937, it obtained reasonably successful results in Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and Limehouse, polling almost 8,000 votes, although none of its candidates was elected.[5] The BUF never stood in a General Election.[citation needed]

Having lost the funding of newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere that it had previously enjoyed, at the 1935 General Election the party urged voters to abstain, calling for "Fascism Next Time".[6] There never was a "next time", as the next General Election was not held until July 1945, five years after the dissolution of the BUF.[citation needed]

Towards the middle of the 1930s, the BUF's violent clashes with opponents began to alienate some middle-class supporters, and membership decreased. At the Olympia rally in London, in 1934, BUF stewards violently ejected anti-fascist disrupters, and this led the Daily Mail to withdraw its support for the movement. The level of violence shown at the rally shocked many, with the effect of turning neutral parties against the BUF and contributing to anti-fascist support. One observer claimed: "I came to the conclusion that Mosley was a political maniac, and that all decent English people must combine to kill his movement."[7]

Decline and legacy

Image
Modern depiction of the Battle of Cable Street. The event is frequently invoked in contemporary British politics

The BUF briefly drew away from mainstream politics and towards antisemitism over 1934-35 owing to the growing influence of Nazi sympathisers within the party, such as William Joyce and John Beckett, which provoked the resignation of members such as Dr. Robert Forgan. This anti-semitic emphasis and these high-profile resignations resulted in membership dropping to below 8,000 by the end of 1935 and, ultimately, Mosley shifted the party's focus back to mainstream politics. The party continued to clash with anti-fascists, most famously at the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936, when organised anti-fascists prevented the BUF from marching through Cable Street. However, the party later staged other marches through the East End without incident, albeit not on Cable Street itself.

BUF support for Edward VIII and the peace campaign to prevent a second World War saw membership and public support rise once more.[8] The government was sufficiently concerned by the party's growing prominence to pass the Public Order Act 1936, which banned political uniforms and required police consent for political marches.

In 1937, William Joyce and other Nazi sympathisers split from the party to form the National Socialist League, which quickly folded, with most of its members interned. Mosley later denounced Joyce as a traitor and condemned him for his extreme anti-semitism. The historian Stephen Dorril revealed in his book Blackshirts that secret envoys from the Nazis had donated about £50,000 to the BUF.[9]

By 1939, total BUF membership was probably approaching 20,000.[8] In May 1940, the BUF was banned outright by the government and Mosley, along with 740 other fascists, was interned for much of the Second World War. After the war, Mosley made several unsuccessful attempts to return to politics, notably in the Union Movement.

Character

Image
The Flash and Circle flag of the British Union of Fascists.

Mosley, known to his followers as The Leader, modelled his leadership style on Benito Mussolini and the BUF on Mussolini's National Fascist Party in Italy, the uniform chosen for members was a black fencing jacket, its colour in honour of the Italian Fascists' uniforms and its cut a nod to Mosley's proficiency at the sport. The uniform earned them the nickname "Blackshirts", which they readily accepted for themselves. The BUF was anti-communist, protectionist, technocratic, and proposed replacing parliamentary democracy with executives elected to represent specific industries, trades or other professional interest groups—a system similar to the corporatism of the Italian fascists. Britain was to remain a democracy, although the House of Lords was to be replaced with a Senate consisting of "notables" from all spheres of public life appointed by the King on the advice of the fascist Prime Minister and the House of Commons was to be renamed the "Chamber of Corporations" and would consist of occupationally elected MPs who would be free to vote as they saw fit.[10]

The BUF's programme and ideology were outlined in Mosley's The Greater Britain (1932) and A. Raven Thompson's The Coming Corporate State (1938). Many BUF policies were built on isolationism, prohibiting trade outside an insulated British Empire. Mosley’s system aimed to protect the British economy from the fluctuations of the world market, especially during the Great Depression, and prevent "cheap slave competition from abroad."[10]

Relationship with the Suffragettes

In a January 2010 BBC documentary, Mother Was A Blackshirt, James Maw reported that in 1914 Norah Elam was placed in a Holloway Prison cell with Emmeline Pankhurst for her involvement with the Suffragette movement, and, in 1940, was returned to the same prison with Diana Mosley, this time for her involvement with the fascist movement. Another leading suffragette, Mary Richardson, became head of the women's section of the BUF.

Mary Sophia Allen OBE was a former branch leader of the West of England Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). At the outbreak of the First World War, she joined the Women Police Volunteers, becoming the WPV Commandant in 1920. She met Mosley at the January Club in April 1932, going on to speak at the club following her visit to Germany, "to learn the truth about of the position of German womanhood".[11]

The BBC report described how Elam's fascist philosophy grew from her suffragette experiences, how the British fascist movement became largely driven by women, how they targeted young women from an early age, how the first British fascist movement was founded by a woman, and how the leading lights of the Suffragettes had, with Oswald Mosley, founded the BUF.[12]

Image

Image

Tolokonnikova Nadezhda Andreevna, "Nadya Tolokno" (Надя Толокно), is a Russian conceptual artist and political activist. She was a member of the Anarchist Feminist group Pussy Riot


Mosley's electoral strategy had been to prepare for the election after 1935, and in 1936 he announced a list of BUF candidates for that election, with Elam nominated to stand for Northampton. Mosley accompanied Elam to Northampton to introduce her to her electorate at a meeting in the Town Hall. At that meeting Mosley announced that "he was glad indeed to have the opportunity of introducing the first candidate, and ... [thereby] killed for all time the suggestion that National Socialism proposed putting British women back into the home; this is simply not true. Mrs Elam [he went on] had fought in the past for women's suffrage ... and was a great example of the emancipation of women in Britain."[13]

Prominent members and supporters

Despite the short period of operation the BUF attracted prominent members and supporters. These included:

• William Edward David Allen MP was the Unionist Member of Parliament for Belfast West.[14]
• John Beckett MP was the Labour Member of Parliament for Peckham.[15]
• Frank Bossard was a British Spy[16]
• Patrick Boyle, 8th Earl of Glasgow was a member of the House of Lords
• Sir Malcolm Campbell was a racing motorist and motoring journalist.[17]
• A. K. Chesterton was a journalist[18]
• Lady Cynthia Curzon (known as 'Cimmie') was the second daughter of George Curzon, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, and the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley until her death in 1933.
• Robert Forgan MP was the Labour Member of Parliament for West Renfrewshire.[17]
• Major General John Frederick Charles Fuller was a military historian and strategist.[17][19]
• Billy Fullerton, leader of the Billy Boys gang from Glasgow.[20]
• Arthur Gilligan, was the Captain of the England cricket team
• Sir Reginald Goodall was a noted English conductor.[21]
• Group Captain Sir Louis Leisler Greig was a British naval surgeon, courtier and intimate of King George VI.[22][23]
• Jeffrey Hamm
• Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere was the owner of the Daily Mail and a member of the House of Lords.[24]
• Neil Francis Hawkins[17]
• Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll was a member of the House of Lords[25]
• William Joyce, later known as Lord Haw-Haw[17]
• David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, in addition to his wife, Lady Redesdale, and two of his daughters:
• Diana Mitford (Lady Mosley, after marriage to Sir Oswald Mosley in 1936)
• The Hon. Unity Mitford
• Tommy Moran
• St John Philby was an explorer, and father of Kim Philby.
• Sir Alliott Verdon Roe was a pilot and businessman[17]
• Edward Frederick Langley Russell, 2nd Baron Russell of Liverpool was a member of the House of Lords[22][23]
• Lady Russell[22][23]
• Edward Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford was a member of the House of Lords
• Hastings Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford was a member of the House of Lords[26]
• Alexander Raven Thomson[17]
• Frank Cyril Tiarks was the Director of the Bank of England.
• Sir Frederick Toone was the manager of the England Cricket team
• Henry Williamson was a writer, best known for his 1927 work Tarka the Otter.[27]

In popular culture

• The Channel 4 television serial Mosley (1998) portrayed the career of Oswald Mosley during his years with the BUF. The four-part series was based on the books Rules of the Game and Beyond the Pale, written by Mosley's son, Nicholas Mosley.[28]
• In the film It Happened Here, the BUF appears to be the ruling party of German-occupied Britain. A Mosley speech is heard on the radio in the scene before everyone goes to the movies.
• The first depiction of Mosley and the BUF in fiction occurred in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel, Point Counter Point, where Mosley is depicted as Everard Webley, the murderous leader of the "BFF", the Brotherhood of Free Fascists, and comes to a nasty end.

Image
Emblem of P. G. Wodehouse's fictional Black Shorts movement that appeared in the television series Jeeves and Wooster.

• Harry Turtledove's alternative history novel, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, is set in 2010 in a world where the Nazis were triumphant, the BUF governs Britain – and the first stirrings of the reform movement come from there. The BUF and Mosley also appear as background influences in Turtledove's Colonization trilogy which follows the Worldwar tetralogy and is set in the 1960s.
• James Herbert's 1996 novel '48 features a protagonist who is hunted by BUF Blackshirts in a devastated London after a biological weapon release in the Second World War. The history of the BUF and Mosley is recapitulated.
• In Ken Follett's novel Night Over Water, several of the main characters are BUF members. In his book Winter of the World, the Battle of Cable Street plays a role and some of the characters are involved in the BUF or in the anti-BUF organisations.
• The BUF is also in Guy Walters' book The Leader (2003), where Mosley is the dictator of Britain in the 1930s.
• The British humorous writer P. G. Wodehouse satirized the BUF in books and short stories. The BUF was satirized as "The Black Shorts"[29] (shorts being worn as all the best shirt colours were already taken) and their leader was Roderick Spode, owner of a ladies' underwear shop.
• The British novelist Nancy Mitford satirized the BUF and Mosley in Wigs on the Green, initially published in 1935 and republished in 2010. Diana Mitford, the author's sister, had been romantically involved with Mosley since 1932.
• In the 1992 Acorn Media production of Agatha Christie's One, Two, Buckle My Shoe with David Suchet and Philip Jackson, one of the supporting characters (played by Christopher Eccleston) secures a paid position as a rank-and-file member of the BUF.
• The BUF and Oswald Mosley are also alluded to in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day.
• The BUF and Mosley are featured heavily in the 2010 BBC version of Upstairs, Downstairs where two of the characters are BUF supporters.
• The Pogues' song "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn", from their 1985 album Rum Sodomy & the Lash, refers to the BUF in its second verse with the line "And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids".
• Ned Beauman's 2010 first novel, Boxer, Beetle, portrays the Battle of Cable Street.
• C.J. Samson's 2012 novel, Dominion, has Sir Oswald Mosley as Home Secretary in a "post-Dunkirk peace with Germany alternate history thriller" set in 1952. Lord Beaverbrook is Prime Minister of an authoritarian coalition government. Blackshirts tend to be auxiliary policemen.
• In series one, episode two ("The White Feather") of Foyle's War, detective Paul Milner attends a fascist group meeting which is obviously based on the BUF and Mosley. References are made to the BUF and Mosley elsewhere in the episode.
• In the film, The King's Speech, a brief shot shows a brick wall in London plastered with posters, some reading "Fascism is Practical Patriotism" and others, "Stand by the King." Both sets of posters were put up by British Blackshirts, who supported King Edward VIII. Some historians believe Edward had fascist leanings.[30]
• In the 2016 war strategy video game Hearts of Iron IV, certain options can be used to increase fascist leaning in the United Kingdom. Doing so can eventually lead to the British Union of Fascists becoming the ruling party, with Oswald Mosley as the nation's leader.[31] The country's name will change to the British Empire and its flag will be replaced with a cross between the Union Flag and the Flash and Circle. Further events can lead to Edward VIII being reinstated as monarch and being placed as the direct ruler of the British Empire.

Election results

By-election / Candidate / Votes / % share
Silvertown by-election, 1940 / Tommy Moran / 151 / 1.0
Leeds North East by-election, 1940 / Sydney Allen / 722 / 2.9
Middleton and Prestwich by-election, 1940 / Frederick Haslam / 418 / 1.3

See also

• List of British fascist parties
• Mosley (1997)
• Diana Mosley - Wife of BUF leader Oswald Mosley

References

1. W F Mandle, Anti-Semitism and the British Union of Fascists
Robert Benewick The Fascist Movement in Britain, pp132-134
Alan S Millward, "Fascism and the Economy", in Walter Laquer (ed) Fascism: A reader's Guide, p450
Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain, p 38 and pp 40-41
2. Thorpe, Andrew. (1995) Britain In The 1930s, Blackwell Publishers, ISBN 0-631-17411-7
3. Andrzej Olechnowicz, "Liberal Anti-Fascism in the 1930s: The Case of Sir Ernest Barker" in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, (Vol. 36, No. 4, Winter, 2004), p. 643.
4. "The Voice of the Turtle". 20 December 2002.
5. R. Benewick, Political Violence and Public Order, London: Allan Lane, 1969, pp. 279-282
6. 1932-1938 Fascism rises—March of the Blackshirts Archived 3 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine.
7. Lloyd, G., Yorkshire Post, 9 June 1934.
8. Richard C. Thurlow. Fascism in Britain: from Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front. 2nd edition. New York, New York, USA: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2006. p. 94.
9. Fenton, Ben. "Oswald Mosley 'was a financial crook bankrolled by Nazis'". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
10. Oswald Mosley, Tomorrow We Live (1938),
11. Caldicott, Rosemary (2017). Lady Blackshirts. The Perils of Perception - suffragettes who became fascists. Bristol Radical Pamphleteer #39. ISBN 978-1911522393.
12. "BBC Radio 4 - Mother Was A Blackshirt". Bbc.co.uk. BBC. 4 January 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
13. McPherson, Angela; McPherson, Susan (2011). Mosley's Old Suffragette - A Biography of Norah Elam. ISBN 978-1-4466-9967-6. Archived from the original on 13 January 2012.
14. Arthur Green, "Allen, William Edward David (1901–1973)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
15. Linehan, Thomas. British Fascism, 1918-39: Parties, Ideology and Culture. p. 139. while Beckett was a one-time Labour MP for Gateshead (1924-29) and Peckham (1929-31)
16. "Soviet spy who had his eye on Belfast", Belfast Telegraph, 24 May 2003
Eric Waugh, With Wings as Eagles
17. Julie V. Gottlieb, "British Union of Fascists (act. 1932–1940)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
18. David Renton, "Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910–1986)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
19. Brian Holden Reid, "Fuller, John Frederick Charles (1878–1966)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
20. "'Billy Boys' link to the Ku Klux Klan", The Irish News, 6 November 2015
21. John Tooley, "Goodall, Sir Reginald (1901–1990)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
22. Resistance to fascism, Glasgow Digital Library (Accessed 6 February 2014)
23. Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany. London: Constable, 1980. p.52 The names are from MI5 Report. 1 August 1934. PRO HO 144/20144/110. (Cited in Thomas Norman Keeley Blackshirts Torn: inside the British Union of Fascists, 1932- 1940 p.26) (Accessed 6 February 2014)
24. D. George Boyce, "Harmsworth, Harold Sidney, first Viscount Rothermere (1868–1940)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
25. Richard Davenport-Hines, "Hay, Josslyn Victor, twenty-second earl of Erroll (1901–1941)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
26. Richard Griffiths, "Russell, Hastings William Sackville, twelfth duke of Bedford (1888–1953)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
27. Anne Williamson, "Williamson, Henry William (1895–1977)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (Accessed 5 February 2014)
28. BFI Film & TV Database (2012). "Mosley". Bfi.org.uk. British Film Institute. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
29. Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville (1 May 2008) [First published 1938 by Herbert Jenkins Ltd.]. The Code of the Woosters(Reprinted ed.). Arrow Books. p. 66. ISBN 978-0099513759.
30. Ziegler, "King Edward VIII: The official biography", p. 392
31. "United Kingdom - Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki". http://www.hoi4wiki.com. Retrieved 22 December 2016.

Further reading

• Caldicott, Rosemary (2017) Lady Blackshirts. The perils of Perception - Suffragettes who became Fascists, Bristol Radical Pamphletteer #39. ISBN 978-1911522393
• Dorril, Stephen (2006). Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British fascism. London: Viking. ISBN 978-0670869992. This book has been criticised as tendentious and biased in its view of its subject.
• Drabik, Jakub. (2016a) "British Union of Fascists", Contemporary British History 30.1 (2016): 1-19.
• Drábik, Jakub. (2016b) "Spreading the faith: the propaganda of the British Union of Fascists", Journal of Contemporary European Studies (2016): 1-15.
• Garau, Salvatore. "The Internationalisation of Italian Fascism in the face of German National Socialism, and its Impact on the British Union of Fascists", Politics, Religion & Ideology 15.1 (2014): 45-63.
• Griffiths, Richard (1983). Fellow Travellers of the Right: British enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-39. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192851161.
• Pugh, Martin (2006). "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!": Fascists and Fascism in Britain between the Wars (1st ed.). London: Pimlico. ISBN 9781844130870.
• Thurlow, Richard (2006). Fascism in Britain: From Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts to the National Front (Rev. ed.). London: Tauris. ISBN 978-1860643378.
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Re: SILVER LEGION OF AMERICA, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Thu Aug 02, 2018 11:06 pm

Flash and circle
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/2/18

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Image
The flag of the British Union of Fascists, known as the "Union Banner"

The flash and circle is a political symbol used by several organisations. It was first used by the British Union of Fascists (BUF), and was adopted in 1935. The BUF had originally used the fasces as its symbol, first on a black disc on a gold background and later in gold with a lightning bolt struck through it on a black background. The flash and circle was designed as a more abstract depiction of the concept of the fasces incorporating the lightning of the 1933 flag within a "circle of unity" and the British national colours of red, white and blue. Oswald Mosley's post-war group the Union Movement and his National Party of Europe initiative continued to use the flash.

Image
The original flag used from 1932 until 1933

Image
The second flag, known as the "Fascist Flag", used as the Movement's sole flag from 1933 to 1935 and later in tandem with the flash and circle

The BUF's two earlier flags, showing the evolution of their symbolism from the fasces of 1932 to the flash and circle of 1935.

The American National Renaissance Party adopted the lightning bolt within a circle as their symbol, which superseded Madole's use of the swastika. It decorated their rostrum and was worn on their armbands.

The BUF's left-wing opponents nicknamed the symbol "the flash in the pan".[1]

Image
The flag of the People's Action Party of Singapore, held high by party supporters during the 2011 Singapore General Election campaign.

The insignia of Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) is composed of a red flash struck through a smaller blue circle on a white background. The PAP insignia is claimed to represent "action within social/racial unity" with the white background representing purity in thought and deed.[2]

A similar logo was adopted by Blocco Studentesco, the youth wing of Italy's CasaPound movement in 2006. The group has been accused of fascist propaganda.


Similar non-political symbols

The simple combination of the lightning bolt and circle elements appears to have led to many similar designs unrelated to the flash and circle. These include the logo of BoltBus. One form of warning sign for high-voltage electricity uses a lightning bolt inside a circle, and this was repurposed by Marilyn Manson as an insignia for his album Antichrist Superstar.[3] In most cases, there is no evidence to suggest that the designer intended to evoke an association with political use of the symbol.

In popular culture

Parodies and fictional representations of fascist movements have also incorporated logos similar to the flash and circle.

Image
Flag of the Black Shorts used in Jeeves and Wooster.

In the alternate history film It Happened Here, the flash and circle is used as the symbol of the fascist puppet government in Nazi-occupied Britain.

In one television adaptation of the Jeeves novels by P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and Wooster, a similar insignia is used by the "Blackshorts", a political group led by Roderick Spode, a character based on Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists.

References

1. Benewick, Robert (1969), Political Violence & Public Order: A Study of British Fascism, p. 139
2. Drysdale, John (1984), Singapore: Struggle for Success, p. 80
3. Baddeley, Gavin (2001). Dissecting Marilyn Manson. London: Plexus Publishing. pp. 101–102. ISBN 0859653722 – via GoogleBooks. The insignia that represents the Antichrist Superstar album ... also echoes the insignia of Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists...
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