Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Happy May Day, part deux
Before people blogged, they wrote letters. On September 14, 1887, Albert Parsons wrote the following letter to his wife. He had been condemned to death, along with several other leaders of the labor movement (also known as Anarchists - A.K.A. terrorists) for the May Day riots in Chicago earlier that year. He was not convicted for what he had done, he was convicted for what he had said.
"Our verdict this morning cheers the hearts of tyrants throughout the world, and the result will be celebrated by King Capital in its drunken feast of flowing wine from Chicago to St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, our doom to death is the handwriting on the wall, foretelling the downfall of hate, malice, hypocrisy, judicial murder, oppression, and the domination of man over his fellowman. The oppressed of earth are writhing in their legal chains. The giant Labor is awakening. The masses, aroused from their stupor, will snap their petty chains like reeds in the whirlwind.
We are all creatures of circumstance; we are what we have been made to be. This truth is becoming clearer day by day.
There was no evidence that any one of the eight doomed men knew of, or advised, or abetted the Haymarket tragedy. But what does that matter? The privileged class demands a victim, and we are offered a sacrifice to appease the hungry yells of an infuriated mob of millionaires who will be contented with nothing less than our lives. Monopoly triumphs! Labor in chains ascends the scaffold for having dared to cry out for liberty and right!
Well, my poor, dear wife, I, personally, feel sorry for you and the helpless little babes of our loins.
You I bequeath to the people, a woman of the people. I have one request to make of you: Commit no rash act to yourself when I am gone, but take up the great cause of Socialism where I am compelled to lay it down.
My children - well, their father had better die in the endeavor to secure their liberty and happiness than live contented in a society which condemns nine-tenths of its children to a life of wage slavery and poverty. Bless them; I love them unspeakably, my poor helpless little ones.
Ah, wife, living or dead, we are as one. For you my affection is everlasting. For the people. Humanity. I cry out again and again in the doomed victim's cell: Liberty! Justice! Equality!"
I'm more certain than ever regarding my previous post on 'Wag the Mexican.' The history of our society and our struggles is so cyclical. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. I cry out in the Liberal Wilderness my brothers and sisters! Understanding, History, Peace; these things are not hard. No one is going to force you to learn it, but it is not hard. You don't have to be smart. Dividing our population based on IQ be just another way to divide and conquer. Please try! I stand here on the other side and I say that it is worth it!
I feel for my brothers, sisters, and elders who feel that history is something that started 2006 years ago with the birth of Christ. Who devote the great majority of their intellectual time to reading and re-reading a single book.
Life takes work! I'll admit, I'd never fucking heard of Albert Parsons. But I should have! Our culture has recorded documentation for thousands of years. We are the children of the Internet Generation. Developing an understanding of history takes a lot of effort. You don't have to be a rocket scientist - anybody can grasp small parts - but it does take a fair amount of time. Best not to think of it like 'time I spent in college,' cuz a lot of that was shit, think of it more as in 'the time I set aside for exercise every week.' We are the children of the Internet Generation. Just as we budget time for physical exercise, we must also budget time for societal understanding. I'd say its somewhere on par with an hour a day. Citizenship takes work! We are the children of the Internet Generation, and the time will be upon us when we must grow up into adults.
Generations before us have been subjected to an incredible control over what they can learn, what they can read. Even during Albert Parson's life most men had to make decisions based on a handful of leaflets that had been published, along with a sparse access to books, and their own experience with the world. We can do anything. We can find content for any question, any time, any mood. This is both a priviledge and a burden. It is a priviledge to have access to such learning. It is a burden to be the generation that should make the most carefully chosen steps.
Our previous generations have often been in situations where there was no alternative. The path was set and they had to claw at it for all it was worth. WWII, or every season in the life of a subsistence farmer. When the papers told you the average japanese was a yellow rat, with thick coke glasses, about the time that Uncle Sam is rounding you up to storm island after shitty island. Pearl Harbor changed everything. It was not a time to question why. . .
We are burdened by the fact that we don't live in that world. We can learn all about the Japanese in a google search. We can learn what causes wars, and work to prevent those situations from arising. Not everything can be solved with talk, but most human beings would prefer to avoid another world war. We should be able to build off that.
MayDay is all about solidarity. Solidarity with my brother and sister Mexicans. Solidarity with my working class history. Solidarity with the simple belief that more people on this planet want to live in peace than want war.
To Cindy:
Art adds content. Schlock just moves content around, repetitively . . in a way you know feels good.
"Our verdict this morning cheers the hearts of tyrants throughout the world, and the result will be celebrated by King Capital in its drunken feast of flowing wine from Chicago to St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, our doom to death is the handwriting on the wall, foretelling the downfall of hate, malice, hypocrisy, judicial murder, oppression, and the domination of man over his fellowman. The oppressed of earth are writhing in their legal chains. The giant Labor is awakening. The masses, aroused from their stupor, will snap their petty chains like reeds in the whirlwind.
We are all creatures of circumstance; we are what we have been made to be. This truth is becoming clearer day by day.
There was no evidence that any one of the eight doomed men knew of, or advised, or abetted the Haymarket tragedy. But what does that matter? The privileged class demands a victim, and we are offered a sacrifice to appease the hungry yells of an infuriated mob of millionaires who will be contented with nothing less than our lives. Monopoly triumphs! Labor in chains ascends the scaffold for having dared to cry out for liberty and right!
Well, my poor, dear wife, I, personally, feel sorry for you and the helpless little babes of our loins.
You I bequeath to the people, a woman of the people. I have one request to make of you: Commit no rash act to yourself when I am gone, but take up the great cause of Socialism where I am compelled to lay it down.
My children - well, their father had better die in the endeavor to secure their liberty and happiness than live contented in a society which condemns nine-tenths of its children to a life of wage slavery and poverty. Bless them; I love them unspeakably, my poor helpless little ones.
Ah, wife, living or dead, we are as one. For you my affection is everlasting. For the people. Humanity. I cry out again and again in the doomed victim's cell: Liberty! Justice! Equality!"
I'm more certain than ever regarding my previous post on 'Wag the Mexican.' The history of our society and our struggles is so cyclical. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. I cry out in the Liberal Wilderness my brothers and sisters! Understanding, History, Peace; these things are not hard. No one is going to force you to learn it, but it is not hard. You don't have to be smart. Dividing our population based on IQ be just another way to divide and conquer. Please try! I stand here on the other side and I say that it is worth it!
I feel for my brothers, sisters, and elders who feel that history is something that started 2006 years ago with the birth of Christ. Who devote the great majority of their intellectual time to reading and re-reading a single book.
Life takes work! I'll admit, I'd never fucking heard of Albert Parsons. But I should have! Our culture has recorded documentation for thousands of years. We are the children of the Internet Generation. Developing an understanding of history takes a lot of effort. You don't have to be a rocket scientist - anybody can grasp small parts - but it does take a fair amount of time. Best not to think of it like 'time I spent in college,' cuz a lot of that was shit, think of it more as in 'the time I set aside for exercise every week.' We are the children of the Internet Generation. Just as we budget time for physical exercise, we must also budget time for societal understanding. I'd say its somewhere on par with an hour a day. Citizenship takes work! We are the children of the Internet Generation, and the time will be upon us when we must grow up into adults.
Generations before us have been subjected to an incredible control over what they can learn, what they can read. Even during Albert Parson's life most men had to make decisions based on a handful of leaflets that had been published, along with a sparse access to books, and their own experience with the world. We can do anything. We can find content for any question, any time, any mood. This is both a priviledge and a burden. It is a priviledge to have access to such learning. It is a burden to be the generation that should make the most carefully chosen steps.
Our previous generations have often been in situations where there was no alternative. The path was set and they had to claw at it for all it was worth. WWII, or every season in the life of a subsistence farmer. When the papers told you the average japanese was a yellow rat, with thick coke glasses, about the time that Uncle Sam is rounding you up to storm island after shitty island. Pearl Harbor changed everything. It was not a time to question why. . .
We are burdened by the fact that we don't live in that world. We can learn all about the Japanese in a google search. We can learn what causes wars, and work to prevent those situations from arising. Not everything can be solved with talk, but most human beings would prefer to avoid another world war. We should be able to build off that.
MayDay is all about solidarity. Solidarity with my brother and sister Mexicans. Solidarity with my working class history. Solidarity with the simple belief that more people on this planet want to live in peace than want war.
To Cindy:
Art adds content. Schlock just moves content around, repetitively . . in a way you know feels good.
Comments:
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Yeah, and that's hideous and true - that most people over the face of the planet have wanted to get on with life, not cut each other's throats or blow each other up. Yet so many end up with their throats cut and getting blown up.
How on earth the world ever gets consistently high quality, world-caring, future oriented leadership - that's sure been a perennial problem.
An "atheist seeker" - I like it...
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How on earth the world ever gets consistently high quality, world-caring, future oriented leadership - that's sure been a perennial problem.
An "atheist seeker" - I like it...
<< Home
