On September 9th, 1971 the Attica Correctional Facility in the State of New York exploded in rebellion.
Less than two weeks after the killing of imprisoned black
revolutionary George Jackson inmates attempted to free a fellow inmate
from his cell after reports that he was being tortured. When guards
realized that prisoners had successfully come to the aid of their fellow
inmate they attempted to collectively punish the prisoners. Instead of
being punished the prisoners revolted. Almost 1,500 inmates in Cell Block D rebelled and seized control over the
Attica Correctional Facility several months after they had formally
submitted a 27-point manifesto to the prison administration and the
media with a list of demands for prison reforms and an end to racism and brutality against prisoners.
At the time of the uprising, there were 2,300 inmates living in a
facility built for 1,600. Though over 60 percent of inmates were Black
and Latino the prison was completely run by white guards and employees,
many of whom were openly racist..Prisoners were only allowed one shower
per week and one roll of
toilet paper each month. Their mail was heavily censored to cut out
anything involving prisons and prisoners’ rights. The medical neglect
within the facility was criminal. Guards often pitted inmates against
each other to incite racial violence.Inmates also labored for 40 cents a
day, assembling mattresses, shoes
and license plates.
The level of unity that developed among prisoners
was nearly unprecedented. There were four days of negotiations, until
then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered state police to take back
control of the prison by brutal force. When the uprising was over, at
least 39 people were dead, hundreds were left maimed and wounded and the prisoners left were subjected to extreme
brutality and torture. Those who were
considered leaders, the prisoner negotiators, spokesmen and security
men, were singled out for prolonged abuse. The example of the Attica prisoners uniting and
standing up for their rights and dignity in the face of such intense
repression inspired and electrified people around the world.
The Attica prison uprising was by no means an isolated or spontaneous
clash. It came as a revolutionary mood swept through Black and Latino
communities and other progressive sectors of the population in the
United States.By September 1971, the Civil Rights movement had transformed itself
into a movement for national liberation among the Black, Puerto Rican
and Chicano populations.Starting in 1964, rebellions swept urban areas throughout the United
States. Major insurrections took place in Rochester, Harlem, Watts,
Newark, Detroit and other cities. When Martin Luther King, Jr., was
murdered in 1968 more than 120 cities went up in flames as young people
battled police, National Guard units and state troopers.Revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party and Young
Lords Party were militantly organizing in urban communities. Millions of
people were protesting the Vietnam War and joining the women’s and LGBT
liberation movements.
This revolutionary mood in the community
sank deep roots within the prisoner population too. The Attica prisoners
were reading revolutionary newspapers. They were studying Marx and
Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, and Franz Fanon and reading
socialist, communist and revolutionary nationalist newspapers.Prisoners
were staging uprisings all over the country, not just in
Attica, New York. The rebellions were extensions of the national
liberation struggles happening all over the United States.
Attica Blues - Archie Shepp
Today September 9th on the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion, prisoners across the United States will begin a strike that will be a general work stoppage against prison slavery.
In short, prisoners will refuse to work; they will refuse to keep the
prisons running by their own labors. Prisoners are striking not just for
better conditions or changes in parole rules, but against prison
slavery. Prisoners state that under the 13th Amendment which abolished
racial slavery, at the same time it allowed human beings to be worked
for free or next to nothing as long as they were prisoners. Prisoners
see the current system of prison slavery to thus be a continuation of
racial slavery, which is a system that generates billions of dollars in
profits each year for major corporations in key industries such as
fossil fuels, fast food, banking, and the US military.
Due to all of these factors, at the present time round 1 in 100
American adults is locked behind bars, and many more are on probation,
parole, house arrest, or in immigrant detention facilities. While
African-Americans, Native, Latino, and poor whites make up the bulk of
the prison population, black, brown, and red convicts make up much a
higher percentage of inmates than their white counter-parts. For
instance, there are currently more African-American people locked within
the prison industrial complex than were held in racialized slavery
prior to the American civil war in the 1860s. It is in this climate in the footsteps of their predecessors at Attica that today's
prison rebels have organized themselves to carry out the strike.
45 years after Attica the cruel mass incarceration system in the USA that is still inherently merciless and immoral and must continue to be exposed.A radical vision for change behind bars is still urgently needed, and it was powerfully captured in the Manifesto of Demands
read out by LD Barkley, one of the leaders of the Attica rebellion who
was killed along with 38 others when the prison was violently re-taken:
We are men! We are not beasts and do not intend to be beaten or driven
as such. The entire prison populace has set forth to change forever the
ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here
and throughout the United States.
What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who
are oppressed...We call upon all the conscientious citizens of America
to assist us in putting an end to this situation that threatens not only
our lives, but each and every citizen as well.
Life is short moves so fast In moments of slumber leaps, Everything bought together Thoughts flying free, Sailing the seas of time Carrying a mighty love, Lamps of resistance Following free birds on earth, Releasing defiant cries Light found in the dark. Laying with all the hope
We have managed to save,
Allowing impalpable imaginings
To work their magic and become real,
As our journeys continue unbroken We leave behind traces of struggle, Evidence of battles fought and won Stories of endurance, pain and survival, Moving forward unbowed, unbeaten
Keeping hopeful, steadfast and strong,
An act, made to escape paying taxes is known as Tax evasion. Such practices can be deliberate concealment of income, manipulation in accounts , disclosure of unreal expenses for deductions, showing personal expenditure as business expenses, overstatement of tax credit or exemptions suppression of profit and capital gains etc.This will result in the disclosure of income which is not the actual income earned by the entity. It is surely one of the biggest problems of our age.
In a piece of research published by HMRC,
people who used tax avoidance schemes were asked about why they took
them up. With very few exceptions, avoiders were aware that the tax
avoidance scheme introduced to them was “unusual” and “at the edge of
tax law” — they followed the letter of the law if not the spirit.
It highlighted the reassuring language used by those marketing the
schemes that was “designed to make the tax avoidance schemes appear
appealing and acceptable”. For example, tax avoidance schemes were
described as: being smart with your taxes; a technical exploitation of
the law; a form of tax relief; well within the [tax] guidelines; and an
opportunity to exploit tax efficiencies.
Anonymous shell corporations and secret bank accounts are vital
resources for those engaged in tax evasion and money laundering. But
this web of secrecy has started to crumble in recent years due in part
to revelations from whistle-blowers embedded in this complex web of tax
havens and fake corporations.
The Panama Papers, revealed that a single law
firm, Mossack Fonseca, facilitated the creation of more than 200,000
offshore entities.The Tories and the right-wing press love to point the finger at those
at the bottom of society like people on benefits, the disabled and
immigrants. But the truth is tax
avoidance by large corporations and the super rich is a far bigger drain
on society, with some estimates saying that it costs the UK over £120
billion a year.
Companies that make use of our infrastructure and services while avoiding tax are freeloaders and parasites! Simple as!
Avant-garde composer John Cage was born today in Los Angeles,1912. Cage moved in the 1940'S TO New York, where he quickly became known as not just a composer but as a radical aesthetician who profoundly influenced people in several domains.
Though his achievements as a composer and a theater artist remain well known, he was also a brilliant and original writer, especially at the intersection of poetry and politics. He died in 1992, but his influence continues to echo.
Whenever John Cage performed, he insisted that the auditorium have
accessible exits: A spectator who didn't want to stay, he said, should
be able to leave easily. Cage—most famous for his 1952 composition 4'33", in which musicians sit in perfect silence for four minutes and 33 seconds—was a gut anarchist.
John Cage - 4'33 performed by David Tudor
His music relied on
mathematical patterns, randomness, improvisation and chance to create
unique sounds and rhythms. He could be said to be one of the developers of modern
dance. Cage's pieces are controversial because they are vastly different
from mainstream music. All of his compositions were difficult to
reproduce and perform, which was an embodiment of his anarchist views.
He believed that difficulty would ensure that "a performance would show
that the impossible is not impossible" -this being Cage's answer to the
notion that solving the world's political and social problems is
impossible. Cage considered himself to be an anarchist, and was inspired
by the work of Henry David Thoreau.whose texts he used in various ways, most brilliantly in his Song Books, where the performers repeat, " The best government / Is no government at all." In an interview in 1985 John Cage said, "I'm an
anarchist. I don't know whether the adjective is pure and simple, or
philosophical, or what, but I don't like government! And I don't like
institutions! And I don't have any confidence in even good
institutions."
Asked about the word ecology, the composer replied that whenever he heard that seductiv word he knew he'd soon hear the word planning and " When I hear that word, I run in the other direction." He also boasted that he never voted.
Some have said his philosophy was more important than his music. He became a Zen Buddhist which impacted enormously on his music. According to Cage music was " purposeful play" however " this play is an affirmation of life - not an attempt to bring order out of chaos , nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we are living, which is so excellent a once one gets one's mind and desires out of the way and lets it act upon its own accord"
Such an approach that set him so apart from other composers. For him it was the Eastern virtues of " Simplicity , disorder and chance." that he built his ideas and music upon..Cage's unequivocal questioning of the status quo remain an inspiration for todays artists who are struggling to forge a career. Ever the anarchist, Cage stated :! I think my activity in the arts is analoqous to political activity. It gives an instance on how to change things radically. " I will end with this poem from his visionary hand.
Anarchist Poem
We don't need government
We need utilities.
Air, water, energy
Travel and communication means
Food and shelter.
We have no need for imaginary mountain ranges
Between separate nations.
We can make tunnels through the real ones.
Nor do we have any need for the continuing division of people
Into those who have what they need
And those who don't.
Both Fuller and Marshal McLuhan
Knew, furthermore
That work is now obsolete.
We have invented machines to do it for us.
Now that we have no need to do anything
What shall we do?
Looking at Fuller's geodesic world map
We see that the Earth is a single island, Oahu.
We must give all the people all they need to live
In any way they wish.
Our present laws protect the rich from the poor.
If there are to be laws, we need ones that
Begin with the acceptance of poverty as a way of life.
We must make the world safe for poverty
Without dependence on government."
For the past 50 years Noam Chomsky’s writings on politics and
language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as
one of the most original and wide-ranging political and social critics
of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the
past century, as a dedicated opponent of war and injustice for more than half a
century Chomsky has also secured a place as
perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States. His dozens of books and writings for innumerable journals have
made him one of the best-known radical voices in the U.S. and around
the world, responsible for contributing to the commitment and shaping
the thinking of countless people.Here is a compilation of 50 years of ideas and analyses condensed
into 2 hours 43 minutes. Riveting and essential. His words still carry the immense power that criticism and analysis at
its best can exemplify: the power of people to understand the world in
order to better understand how to change it.
Welsh poet, dramatist, historian, dramatist literary critic, and political activist.Saunders Lewis is considered one of Wales' leading literary and political icons, and is considered by some a nationalist hero.was born John Saunders Lewis, into a Welsh-speaking family in Wallasey, Cheshire on the 15th October 1893, and grew up among the Welsh community in Merseyside.
He was a prominent Welsh nationalist and a founder of the Welsh National Party (later known as Plaid Cymru). Lewis is usually acknowledged to have been among the most prominent figures of twentieth-century Welsh-language literature. Lewis was a 1970 Nobel nominee for literature, and in 2005 was voted 10th as Wales' 'greatest-ever person' in a BBC Wales poll..
Lewis
studied English and French at Liverpool University until the breakout
of World War One, after which he served in the South Wales Borderers.
After the end of the war Lewis returned to university and graduated in
English.In 1922 Lewis joined the University of Wales, Swansea
as a lecturer in Welsh. Lewis' nationalism was heightened by his wartime
experiences, and fighting with Irish soldiers in particular seemed to
shape his ideas on the importance of Welsh identity.In 1925 he
joined other nationalists at a 1925 National Eisteddfod meeting with an
aim to establishing a national party for Wales. Plaid [Genedlaethol]
Cymru was established, of which Lewis was President from 1926 to 1939.
In
1936 in protest to a bombing school being established at Penyberth on
the Llŷn Peninsula, Lewis along with along with Rev. Lewis Edward Valentine, pastor of the Llandudno Welsh
Baptist Church and David John Williams, senior schoolmaster at Fishguard
County School had in protest set fire to a structure on a RAF base at
Pwllheli, Caernarfonshire, Wales. They felt the recently built RAF base
"was an immoral violation of the sure and natural rights of the Welsh
people", Lewis saying that “the UK government was
intent upon turning one of the ‘essential homes of Welsh culture, idiom,
and literature’ into a place for promoting a barbaric method of
warfare”. After setting the blaze, the trio informed the police what they
had done and turned themselves in and claimed responsibility for the act of arson.Lewis
was dismissed from his post at Swansea University following the crime.
The Penyberth Three were jailed for nine months at Wormwood Scrubs for
the act, an event which had major repercussions in the run-up to the Second
World War and provoked a backlash against Wales and the Welsh in England. However after being released from prison the men were given a hero's welcome by 15,000 people in Caernarfon.They had won the hearts of the Welsh people when they opposed the building of a
bombing school in Wales .Sympathy for this case will depend upon feelings for the nationalist
cause. However, what is striking is that the government’s lack of
willingness to engage and compromise with the protestors led to a few
people taking an extreme form of action. It may not have worked as far
as the Llyn Peninsula was concerned but it probably helped galvanise
nationalist feeling in Wales for many years to come.
After being released from prison in autumn 1937, Lewis moved to Llanfarian on the outskirts of Aberystwyth, and spent the following fifteen years earning an uncertain
living between teaching, farming and journalism. In 1939 he resigned from the presidency of the
National Party. 1941 saw the publication of the slim volume of poetry,
Byd a Betws, in which the opening poem, ‘Y Dilyw 1939’ (‘The Deluge 1939’),
refers to unemployed miners of the industrial south as ‘y demos
dimai’ (‘the halfpenny demos’) and to Wall Street
financiers ‘[a]'u ffroenau Hebreig yn ystadegau'r chwarter’
(‘with their Hebrew nostrils in the quarter's statistics’). It was
repeatedly quoted from then on by left-wing critics attacking his snobbery and his
anti-semitism. His column ‘Cwrs y Byd’ (‘The Course
of the World’) in Y Faner was more substantial. Between 1939 and 1951 he contributed more than 560 weekly articles on
life in Wales, Europe and the world as it faced the
inevitability of war, the conflict itself, and the new world which emerged from the
subsequent peace. These columns show Lewis at his best and
his worst. Prophesying doom and convinced that no good would come of victory for either
side, he said that Wales should remain above the fray. His column was
withheld more than once and often cut by the censor's blue pencil. His half-halo came to be cancelled out by one diabolical horn. Lewis’s
support for the dictatorships inaugurated first by Portugal’s Salazar
and then Spain’s Franco became a subject of concern to Plaid members and
voters. Possibly influenced by his embrace of Catholicism – in whose pre Vatican
2 reading of the Christ story and certainly influenced by Maurice Barres, the
market-leader in what has been called ‘the first wave of French Fascism’
and a high priest of French anti-semitism (of whom Lewis once wrote,
acknowledging his debt, that ‘it was through him that I discovered
Wales’), Lewis was certainly a political and literary anti-semite.
His position during the Second World War was also controversial as he felt
that Wales should take a completely neutral position and supported the
campaign for the Welsh to become conscientious objectors. He argued with
the left of the Welsh nationalist movement and was seen by some as
having an elitist approach. Perhaps his most controversial statement,
though, waswhen he appeared to show admiration for
Adolf Hitler – as late as 1936, the year of the arson attack, when he
wrote: “At once he fulfilled his promise — a promise which was greatly
mocked by the London papers months before that — to completely abolish
the financial strength of the Jews in the economic life of Germany.” Though he is considered one of the
leading Welsh political figures of the Twentieth Century, Lewis reputation should now be forever held into question like his comtempraries T.S Eliot and Ezra Pound whose work is still marred by the same stain that lingers over Saunder Lewis.It would be a dereliction if I whitewashed this thorny issue from Lewis's story.
Saunders Lewis was a complex, tortured individual, a poet and dramatist,
described by historian Gwyn A Williams as “deeply conservative, a monarchist, a
believer in leadership by a responsible elite”. Under him, Plaid called
for “a nation of ‘small capitalists’, cooperation, the
deindustrialisation of South Wales and the restoration of agriculture as
the basic industry”. Lewis also called for the annihilation of English as a national language: “It must be deleted from the land called Wales”. He served as president of Plaid for 13 years and became its public face.
During the Second World War the party moved rightwards, and its
toleration of anti-Semitism and refusal to oppose Hitler, Mussolini or
Franco alienated many who believed they had joined a liberal, even left
wing, nationalist party. By the end of the Second World WarLewis was disillusioned by the ‘communal
socialist’ and pacifist tendency of Plaid Cymru (as it was called
by then), by its lack of emphasis on the language, and later by what he regarded as the
half-hearted stance of its liberal pacifist president, Gwynfor Evans, on plans by Liverpool
Corporation to drown the village of Cwm Celyn in order to create
the Tryweryn reservoir. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/cofiwch-dryweryn-remember-tryweryn.html Over the next 15 years the party moved
from being a right wing nationalist movement to being a party in favour
of trade unions and social reform.
Nationalist sentiment was heightened in the late 1950s and 1960s with
the case of the Tryweryn Valley, where, despite nationwide Welsh
protests, the village of Capel Celyn was flooded to build a reservoir
for Liverpool. Plaid’s share of the vote went up from 0.7 percent in 1951 to 3.1 percent in 1955 and 5.2 percent in 1959.
Lewis will
probably be best today remembered for his literary legacy. His first play,
"Blodeuwedd" ("The woman of flowers") opened in 1923. His play "Buchedd
Garmon" ("The life of Germanus") was broadcast on the BBC in 1937. Later
plays like "Siwan" (1956), "Brad" ("Treachery") (1958) and "Esther
"(1960) would establish his reputation as a poet and a philosopher.
Lewis wrote two novels, "Monica" in 1930 and "Merch Gwern Hywel" ("The
daughter of Gwern Hywel") in 1964. These works along with many others
garnished him a nomination for the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature.
He returned to lecturing in 1952 at Cardiff and remained
there until his retirement five years later. In 1962 Lewis gave a lecture on BBC radio entitled
Tynged Yr Iaith (The Fate of the Language). In this speech Lewis
predicted the extinction of the Welsh language and declared that the
language would die unless revolutionary methods were used to defend it. It was a clear defiant rallying cry.A result of the lecture led to the foundation of the Welsh Language Society/ Cymdeithas Y Iaith – a protest
organisation which subsequently forced the adoption of equal legal
validity for the Welsh-language in official communications and road
signs – and forced a Government U-turn leading to the establishment of
S4C – the Welsh Fourth Channel and saw a revival in the use of spoken Welsh. Here is a link to full transcript of this historical lecture;- https://morris.cymru/testun/saunders-lewis-fate-of-the-language.html
It would have an impact, and the language movement went through an important shift,
ceasing to be just a conservative concern and beginning to draw in many
students and young people. The action focused on campaigning for the use
of Welsh in official documents, in the media and on road signs. Many
members of Cymdeithas were involved in a high-visibility campaign of
direct action in 1969, in which English road signs were vandalised and
painted out.
This period saw numerous hunger strikes, prison sentences and
occupations of TV studios. The campaign against the Investiture of the
Prince of Wales at Caernarfon, also in 1969, saw a separate bombing
campaign, in which two young men died after bombs went off prematurely.This speech also ironically made the old man into an idol for a new generation bred on the
ideals of the civil rights movements in the southern United States and South Africa. The arch-conservative had become a symbol of
revolution.
Saunders Lewis died on September 1st 1985 at the age of 91.Yes he stood up for the Welsh language but despite efforts to sanitise his story by members of the Welsh establishment, it would be wrong to airbrush the ugly whiff of fascism that stays attached to him today.We should not forget either the fact, he was attacked in Wales during the Thirties in article after
article in the Welsh language by those people who drew attention to his
support for the Fascist cause in Europe. This is a man who polluted the
public life of Wales for generations because of his unpalpable points of view, and because of this his work will always remain contentious.Lewis remains a controversial figure, and the extent to which he
harboured anti-Semitic attitudes and a sympathy for European fascists
remains a subject of intense debate. Plaid Cymru doesn’t like to mention or discuss, let alone condemn its own murky past. Indeed, former party President, Lord Dafydd Wigley, who will have known Lewis personally, called for the ‘character assassination’ of him to end during a 2015 interview, as though Lewis’s abhorrent views were some kind of minor character flaw.https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/dafydd-wigley-calls-character-assassination-10468439 and by the time of his death in 1985 he remained one of the most celebrated of Welsh writers.
I needed a chuckle, Jeremy Corbyn looks set to achieve a second landslide victory in the
Labour leadership election, according to a YouGov poll released this
week. The headline figures put Corbyn at 62 per cent of the vote, with
his rival Owen Smith staggering behind on 38 per cent. If such a margin
were to hold for the official election, Jeremy Corbyn would be elected
with an even greater mandate than the one he received less than a year
ago. The reason that Corbynism works I guess is because it is real; in comparison,
everything Smith does looks pre-packaged and false. When it comes to
Jeremy Corbyn, what you see is what you get. You may not like that – and
that’s your right – but it’s clear that across the Labour membership,
Corbyn is liked and admired. But ifyou are a Corbyn supporter do not be complacent - we do not know if
this poll took place before some of the purges of members who lost their
vote. So keep voting, and if you have not received your email or your
ballot - complain! If you have been purged then this is what to do here,
to get your vote back"
"WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one’s birthplace, the place of
childhood’s recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations ? Is it the
place where, in childlike naivete, we would watch the fleeting clouds,
and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we
would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one
“an eye should be,” piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it
the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to
have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or the place where we
would sit at mother’s knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great
deeds and conquests ? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch
representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and
playful childhood?
If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called
upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into
factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have
replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of
great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of
sorrow, tears, and grief.
What, then, is patriotism? “Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of
scoundrels,” said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of
our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the
training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment
for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of
life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better
returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.
Gustave Hervé, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism a
superstition - one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than
religion. The superstition of religion originated in man’s inability to
explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard thunder or
saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore
concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself.
Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various
other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a
superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of
lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect
and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of
patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is
divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those
who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider
themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living
beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone
living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to
impose his superiority upon all the others.
The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course,
with the result that, from early infancy, the mind of the child is
poisoned with bloodcurdling stories about the Germans, the French, the
Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood, he is
thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord
himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any
foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater
army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. It is for that purpose
that America has within a short time spent four hundred million dollars.
Just think of it - four hundred million dollars taken from the produce
of the people. For surely it is not the rich who contribute to
patriotism. They are cosmopolitans, perfectly at home in every land. We
in America know well the truth of this. Are not our rich Americans
Frenchmen in France, Germans in Germany, or Englishmen in England? And
do they not squander with cosmopolitan grace fortunes coined by American
factory children and cotton slaves? Yes, theirs is the patriotism that
will make it possible to send messages of condolence to a despot like
the Russian Tsar, when any mishap befalls him, as President Roosevelt
did in the name of his people, when Sergius was punished by the Russian
revolutionists.
It is a patriotism that will assist the arch-murderer, Diaz, in
destroying thousands of lives in Mexico, or that will even aid in
arresting Mexican revolutionists on American soil and keep them
incarcerated in American prisons, without the slightest cause or reason.
But, then, patriotism is not for those who represent wealth and
power. It is good enough for the people. It reminds one of the historic
wisdom of Frederick the Great, the bosom friend of Voltaire, who said:
“Religion is a fraud, but it must be maintained for the masses.”
That patriotism is rather a costly institution, no one will doubt
after considering the following statistics. The progressive increase of
the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world during
the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to startle
every thoughtful student of economic problems. It may be briefly
indicated by dividing the time from 1881 to 1905 into five-year periods,
and noting the disbursements of several great nations for army and navy
purposes during the first and last of those periods. From the first to
the last of the periods noted the expenditures of Great Britain
increased from $2,101,848,936 to $4,143,226,885, those of France from
$3,324,500,000 to $3,455,109,900, those of Germany from $725,000,200 to
$2,700,375,600, those of the United States from $1,275,500,750 to
$2,650,900,450, those of Russia from $1,900,975,500 to $5,250,445,100,
those of Italy from $1,600,975,750 to $1,755,500,100, and those of Japan
from $182,900,500 to $700,925,475.
The military expenditures of each of the nations mentioned increased
in each of the five-year periods under review. During the entire
interval from 1881 to 1905 Great Britain’s outlay for her army increased
fourfold, that of the United States was tripled, Russia’s was doubled,
that of Germany increased 35 per cent., that of France about 15 per
cent., and that of Japan nearly 500 per cent. If we compare the
expenditures of these nations upon their armies with their total
expenditures for all the twenty-five years ending with I905, the
proportion rose as follows:
In Great Britain from 20 per cent. to 37; in the United States from
15 to 23; in France from 16 to 18; in Italy from 12 to 15; in Japan from
12 to 14. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the
proportion in Germany decreased from about 58 per cent. to 25, the
decrease being due to the enormous increase in the imperial expenditures
for other purposes, the fact being that the army expenditures for the
period of 190I-5 were higher than for any five-year period preceding.
Statistics show that the countries in which army expenditures are
greatest, in proportion to the total national revenues, are Great
Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy, in the order
named.
The showing as to the cost of great navies is equally impressive.
During the twenty-five years ending with 1905 naval expenditures
increased approximately as follows: Great Britain, 300 per cent.; France
60 per cent.; Germany 600 per cent.; the United States 525 per cent.;
Russia 300 per cent.; Italy 250 per cent.; and Japan, 700 per cent. With
the exception of Great Britain, the United States spends more for naval
purposes than any other nation, and this expenditure bears also a
larger proportion to the entire national disbursements than that of any
other power. In the period 1881-5, the expenditure for the United States
navy was $6.20 out of each $100 appropriated for all national purposes;
the amount rose to $6.60 for the next five-year period, to $8.10 for
the next, to $11.70 for the next, and to $16.40 for 1901-5. It is
morally certain that the outlay for the current period of five years
will show a still further increase.
The rising cost of militarism may be still further illustrated by
computing it as a per capita tax on population. From the first to the
last of the five-year periods taken as the basis for the comparisons
here given, it has risen as follows: In Great Britain, from $18.47 to
$52.50; in France, from $19.66 to $23.62; in Germany, from $10.17 to
$15.51; in the United States, from $5.62 to $13.64; in Russia, from
$6.14 to $8.37; in Italy, from $9.59 to $11.24, and in Japan from 86
cents to $3.11.
It is in connection with this rough estimate of cost per capita that
the economic burden of militarism is most appreciable. The irresistible
conclusion from available data is that the increase of expenditure for
army and navy purposes is rapidly surpassing the growth of population in
each of the countries considered in the present calculation. In other
words, a continuation of the increased demands of militarism threatens
each of those nations with a progressive exhaustion both of men and
resources.
The awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient
to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease. Yet
patriotism demands still more. The people are urged to be patriotic and
for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their “defenders,” but
even by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance
to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother,
brother, sister.
The usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the
country from foreign invasion. Every intelligent man and woman knows,
however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the
foolish. The governments of the world, knowing each other’s interests,
do not invade each other. They have learned that they can gain much more
by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest.
Indeed, as Carlyle said, “War is a quarrel between two thieves too
cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one
village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with
guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other.”
It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar
cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great and
patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our hearts
burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards! True, our
indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was nurtured by months of
newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher Weyler had killed off many
noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women. Still, in justice to the
American Nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to
fight, and that it fought bravely. But when the smoke was over, the dead
buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase
in the price of commodities and rent - that is, when we sobered up from
our patriotic spree it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the
Spanish-American war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to
be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the American
people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists, which
were threatened by the Spanish government. That this is not an
exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven
by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba
was firmly in the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent
to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great
cigarmakers’ strike, which took place shortly after the war.
Nor do we stand alone in waging war for such causes. The curtain is
beginning to be lifted on the motives of the terrible Russo-Japanese
war, which cost so much blood and tears. And we see again that back of
the fierce Moloch of war stands the still fiercer god of Commercialism.
Kuropatkin, the Russian Minister of War during the Russo-Japanese
struggle, has revealed the true secret behind the latter. The Tsar and
his Grand Dukes, having invested money in Corean concessions, the war
was forced for the sole purpose of speedily accumulating large fortunes.
The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of
peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is
he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully
proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his
strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful
countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, With the
result that peace is maintained.
However, the clamor for an increased army and navy is not due to any
foreign danger. It is owing to the dread of the growing discontent of
the masses and of the international spirit among the workers. It is to
meet the internal enemy that the Powers of various countries are
preparing themselves; an enemy, who, once awakened to consciousness,
will prove more dangerous than any foreign invader.
The powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the
masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. They know that
the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears
can be turned into joy with a little toy. And the more gorgeously the
toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it will appeal to the
million-headed child.
An army and navy represents the people’s toys. To make them more
attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being
spent for the display of these toys. That was the purpose of the
American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the
Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the
pride and glory of the United States. The city of San Francisco spent
one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; Los
Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one hundred thousand.
To entertain the fleet, did I say? To dine and wine a few superior
officers, while the “brave boys” had to mutiny to get sufficient food.
Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks,
theatre parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and child}en
through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the
streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at
any price.
Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! What could not have been
accomplished with such an enormous sum ? But instead of bread and
shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that
it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, “a lasting memory for the
child.”
A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of civilized
slaughter. If the mind of the child is to be poisoned with such
memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood
?
We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we
are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the
possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon
helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone,
who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon
that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the
thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and
that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other
nations.
Such is the logic of patriotism.
Considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the
average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury that
patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself - that poor, deluded victim of
superstition and ignorance. He, the savior of his country, the
protector of his nation - what has patriotism in store for him? A life
of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a life of
danger, exposure, and death, during war.
While on a recent lecture tour in San Francisco, I visited the
Presidio, the most beautiful spot overlooking the Bay and Golden Gate
Park. Its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens and
music for the recreation of the weary. Instead it is made ugly, dull,
and gray by barracks - barracks wherein the rich would not allow their
dogs to dwell. In these miserable shanties soldiers are herded like
cattle; here they waste their young days, polishing the boots and brass
buttons of their superior officers. Here, too, I saw the distinction of
classes: sturdy sons of a free Republic, drawn up in line like convicts,
saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant. American equality,
degrading manhood and elevating the uniform!
Barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual
perversion. It is gradually producing along this line results similar to
European military conditions. Havelock Ellis, the noted writer on sex
psychology, has made a thorough study of the subject. I quote: “Some of
the barracks are great centers of male prostitution.... The number of
soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than we are willing to
believe. It is no exaggeration to say that in certain regiments the
presumption is in favor of the venality of the majority of the men....
On summer evenings Hyde Park and the neighborhood of Albert Gate are
full of guardsmen and others plying a lively trade, and with little
disguise, in uniform or out.... In most cases the proceeds form a
comfortable addition to Tommy Atkins’ pocket money.”
To what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the army and
navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for this
form of prostitution. The practice is not limited to England; it is
universal. “Soldiers are no less sought after in France than in England
or in Germany, and special houses for military prostitution exist both
in Paris and the garrison towns.”
Had Mr. Havelock Ellis included America in his investigation of sex
perversion, he would have found that the same conditions prevail in our
army and navy as in those of other countries. The growth of the standing
army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion; the barracks are
the incubators.
Aside from the sexual effects of barrack life, it also tends to unfit
the soldier for useful labor after leaving the army. Men, skilled in a
trade, seldom enter the army or navy, but even they, after a military
experience, find themselves totally unfitted for their former
occupations. Having acquired habits of idleness and a taste for
excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them. Released
from the army, they can turn to no useful work. But it is usually the
social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom either the
struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the ranks. These,
their military term over, again turn to their former life of crime,
more brutalized and degraded than before. It is a well-known fact that
in our prisons there is a goodly number of ex-soldiers; while, on the
other hand, the army and navy are to a great extent plied with
ex-convicts.
Of all the evil results I have just described none seems to me so
detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced in
the case of Private William Buwalda. Because he foolishly believed that
one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man at the same time,
the military authorities punished him severely. True, he had served his
country fifteen years, during which time his record was unimpeachable.
According to Gen. Funston, who reduced Buwalda’s sentence to three
years, “the first duty of an officer or an enlisted man is unquestioned
obedience and loyalty to the government, and it makes no difference
whether he approves of that government or not.” Thus Funston stamps the
true character of allegiance. According to him, entrance into the army
abrogates the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine !
In justification of this most outrageous sentence of Buwalda, Gen.
Funston tells the American people that the soldier’s action was “a
serious crime equal to treason.” Now, what did this “terrible crime”
really consist of ? Simply in this: William Buwalda was one of fifteen
hundred people who attended a public meeting in San Francisco; and, oh,
horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, Emma Goldman. A terrible
crime, indeed, which the General calls “a great military offense,
infinitely worse than desertion.”
Can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it
will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him of
the results of fifteen years of faithful service?
Buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very
manhood. But all that was as nothing. Patriotism is inexorable and, like
all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. It does not admit that
a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his own feelings
and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. No, patriotism can not
admit of that. That is the lesson which Buwalda was made to learn; made
to learn at a rather costly, though not at a useless price. When he
returned to freedom, he had lost his position in the army, but he
regained his self-respect. After all, that is worth three years of
imprisonment.
A writer on the military conditions of America, in a recent article,
commented on the power of the military man over the civilian in Germany.
He said, among other things, that if our Republic had no other meaning
than to guarantee all citizens equal rights, it would have just cause
for existence. I am convinced that the writer was not in Colorado during
the patriotic regime of General Bell. He probably would have changed
his mind had he seen how, in the name of patriotism and the Republic,
men were thrown into bull-pens, dragged about, driven across the border,
and subjected to all kinds of indignities. Nor is that Colorado
incident the only one in the growth of military power in the United
States. There is hardly a strike where troops and militia do not come to
the rescue of those in power, and where they do not act as arrogantly
and brutally as do the men wearing the Kaiser’s uniform. Then, too, we
have the Dick military law. Had the writer forgotten that?
A great misfortune with most of our writers is that they are
absolutely ignorant on current events, or that, lacking honesty, they
will not speak of these matters. And so it has come to pass that the
Dick military law was rushed through Congress with little discussion and
still less publicity - a law which gives the President the power to
turn a peaceful citizen into a bloodthirsty man-killer, supposedly for
the defense of the country, in reality for the protection of the
interests of that particular party whose mouthpiece the President
happens to be.
Our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in
America as abroad, since it is voluntary with us, while compulsory in
the Old World. Two very important facts, however, the gentleman forgets
to consider. First, that conscription has created in Europe a
deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society. Thousands
of young recruits enlist under protest and, once in the army, they will
use every possible means to desert. Second, that it is the compulsory
feature of militarism which has created a tremendous anti-militarist
movement, feared by European Powers far more than anything else. After
all, the greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. The very moment
the latter is undermined, capitalism will totter. True, we have no
conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army,
but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force - necessity.
Is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a
tremendous increase in the number of enlistments ? The trade of
militarism may not be either lucrative or honorable, but it is better
than tramping the country in search of work, standing in the bread line,
or sleeping in municipal lodging houses. After all, it means thirteen
dollars per month, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Yet even
necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an
element of character and manhood. No wonder our military authorities
complain of the “poor material” enlisting in the army and navy. This
admission is a very encouraging sign. It proves that there is still
enough of the spirit of independence and love of liberty left in the
average American to risk starvation rather than don the uniform.
Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that
patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the
necessities of our time. The centralization of power has brought into
being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations
of the world; a solidarity which represents a greater harmony of
interests between the workingman of America and his brothers abroad than
between the American miner and his exploiting compatriot; a solidarity
which fears not foreign invasion, because it is bringing all the workers
to the point when they will say to their masters, “Go and do your own
killing. We have done it long enough for you.” This solidarity is
awakening the consciousness of even the soldiers, they, too, being flesh
of the flesh of the great human family. A solidarity that has proven
infallible more than once during past struggles, and which has been the
impetus inducing the Parisian soldiers, during the Commune of 1871, to
refuse to obey when ordered to shoot their brothers. It has given
courage to the men who mutinied on Russian warships during recent years.
It will eventually bring about the uprising of all the oppressed and
downtrodden against their international exploiters.
The proletariat of Europe has realized the great force of that
solidarity and has, as a result, inaugurated a war against patriotism
and its bloody spectre, militarism. Thousands of men fill the prisons of
France, Germany, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries, because they
dared to defy the ancient superstition. Nor is the movement limited to
the working class; it has embraced representatives in all stations of
life, its chief exponents being men and women prominent in art, science,
and letters.
America will have to follow suit. The spirit of militarism has
already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that
militarism is growing a greater danger here than anywhere else, because
of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to
destroy.
The beginning has already been made in the schools. Evidently the
government holds to the Jesuitical conception, “Give me the child mind,
and I will mould the man.” Children are trained in military tactics, the
glory of military achievements extolled in the curriculum, and the
youthful minds perverted to suit the government. Further, the youth of
the country is appealed to in glaring posters to join the army and navy.
“A fine chance to see the world !” cries the governmental huckster.
Thus innocent boys are morally shanghaied into patriotism, and the
military Moloch strides conquering through the Nation.
The American workingman has suffered so much at the hands of the
soldier, State and Federal, that he is quite justified in his disgust
with, and his opposition to, the uniformed parasite. However, mere
denunciation will not solve this great problem. What we need is a
propaganda of education for the soldier: anti-patriotic literature that
will enlighten him as to the real horrors of his trade, and that will
awaken his consciousness to his true relation to the man to whose labor
he owes his very existence. It is precisely this that the authorities
fear most. It is already high treason for a soldier to attend a radical
meeting. No doubt they will also stamp it high treason for a soldier to
read a radical pamphlet. But, then, has not authority from time
immemorial stamped every step of progress as treasonable? Those,
however, who earnestly strive for social reconstruction can well afford
to face all that; for it is probably even more important to carry the
truth into the barracks than into the factory. When we have undermined
the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for that great
structure wherein all nationalities shall be united into a universal
brotherhood, - a truly FREE SOCIETY.
Emma Goldman, 1911; Patriotism, a Menace to Liberty
Emma Goldman on Patriotism
Read by Sandra Oh
Emma Goldman, 1911; Patriotism, a Menace to Liberty
