Who shall speak out for us?

Tuesday January 14, 2003 12:00

by mnemonic. - infoshop fan.

on the aniversary of the birth of Martin Niemoeller some memories.

1892 -- Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984), pacifist pastor, lives, Germany. In Germany they came first for the Communists, & I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, & I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, & I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, & I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, & by that time no one was left to speak up.

— Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor

other things that happended on this date.

1784 -- Treaty of Paris, officially ending U.S. War of Independence, ratified by Congress. By its terms, "His Britannic Majesty" is bound to withdraw his armies without "carrying away any Negroes or other property of American inhabitants."
1850 -- While held in the Königstein fortress, Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin is condemned to death.
1878 -- US: Supreme Court rules unconstitutional any state law requiring railroads to provide equal accommodations for passengers, regardless of race or color.
1893 -- England: Independent Labour Party founded, Bradford, headed by Keir Hardie.
1914 -- US: Henry Ford's assembly line begins production of the Model T. Each car requires 90 minutes for assembly.

---------------CARS!
---------------yes people even then protested.

1914 -- US: IWW (Industrial Workers of the World)-Suhr Trial begins, Marysville, California. http://iww.org/
1918 -- US: Anarchist/feminist Emma Goldman fined & sentenced to 2 years prison for obstruction of justice (opposing the draft). She will soon be deported from the Land of the Free.
http://home4.swipnet.se/~w-40997/emma.htm
1918 -- US: Supreme Court upholds constitutionality of the selective service law, affirms all criminal charges arising from non-compliance with the draft.
On the 28th the Court mandates return of Emma Goldman & Alexander Berkman to begin prison sentences. On the 30th, from Petrograd, the U.S. ambassador notifies the State Department of the Russian anarchists' threat to hold him personally responsible for Goldman's & Berkman's safety in prison.
1919 -- Russia: Voline, Russian revolutionary & anarchist historian, arrested & dragged from one prison to another.
Trotsky already had ordered his execution, & Voline escaped death only by sheer accident: In 1921 the Red Trade Union International held a Congress in Moscow, which included delegates from anarcho-syndicalist organizations in Spain, France, & elsewhere. They arrived just as anarchists in the Taganka prison went on a hunger strike. This caused a scandal at the Congress, forcing the Bolsheviks to release the hunger-strikers (on condition they leave Russia); the anarchists were the first political prisoners deported from the vaunted Red Fatherland of the Proletariat.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/voline/
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/2163/bolintro.html
1921 -- Murray Bookchin, American anarchist, lives. Prolific author, philosopher, advocate of Libertarian Municipalism, head of the Institute for Social Ecology.
http://www.social-ecology.org/harbinger/vol2no1/bookchin.html

now memory is strange.
we forget and we omit
we edit and we distort
we choose our heroes
we ignore those of others
we troll through our synapsis checking the electrical sparks that give everything.

Many of us here have the Niemeyer quote in our head.
MAny of us have forgotten the other stuff.
Many of us never knew it.
Many of us have sang songs all our lives.

I hope that the list of "what happened" becomes more cheerful in the future.

In this last year and year alone, there have been arrests and harresments of new sections of the US public.
The Blacks, and anarchists, socialists and other malcontents are used to it.
But in the last year there have been new additions to the enemies of Washington that appear to be no more threatening than any "person on the street".
I refer to the mass arrests of muslim students
reported in global media 19th Decemeber 2002
http://ireland.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=22215
and the ongoing harrasment of Green Party activists.
http://ireland.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=23699

WHO DO YOU SPEAK TO ABOUT THESE THINGS?
ask your neighbours and non-activist friends
"who protects your liberty?"

I suggest the answer is people less well armed than any flyby Shannon 19yr old.
(THe average age of a US soldier is still 19yrs).

2003
-1984
= 19 are we old enough this year?
o as if