Today in Labor History March 8, 1971: The Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI stole 1,000 documents from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. They later released the documents to newspapers, revealing the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which harassed, imprisoned & murdered US political dissidents. According to Noam Chomsky, 40% of the documents were dedicated to political surveillance. James Ellroy wrote about the burglary in his 2009 novel, “Blood’s a Rover.”
Writer and scientist Susan Abulhawa is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children’s organization dedicated to uplifting #Palestinian#children. She wrote the following piece during her stay in #Rafah in February and early March.
Today in Labor History March 5, 1917: Members of the IWW went on trial in Everett, Washington for the Everett Massacre, which occurred on November 5, 1916. In reality, they were the victims of an assault by a mob of drunken, vigilantes, led by Sheriff McRae. The IWW members had come to support the 5-month long strike by shingle workers. When their boat, the Verona, arrived, the Sheriff asked who their leader was. They replied, “We are all leaders.” Then the vigilantes began firing at their boat. They killed 12 IWW members and 2 of their own, who they accidentally shot in the back. Before the killings, 40 IWW street speakers had been taken by deputies to Beverly Park, where they were brutally beaten and run out of town. In his “USA” trilogy, John Dos Passos mentions Everett as “no place for the working man.” And Jack Kerouac references the Everett Massacre in his novel, “Dharma Bums.”
Today in Labor History February 27, 1902: John Steinbeck was born on this date in Salinas, California. He wrote numerous novels from the perspective of farmers and working-class people, including “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Tortilla Flats” “Of Mice and Men,” “Cannery Row,” and “East of Eden.” In 1935, he joined the communist League of American Writers. He faced contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with HUAC. The FBI and the IRS harassed him throughout his career. Yet he wrote glowingly about U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962 and the Pulitzer in 1939.
Today in Labor History February 27, 1812: Poet Lord Byron gave his first address as a member of the House of Lords. In his speech, he spoke out in support of Luddite violence against industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. He spoke specifically against the Frame Breaking Act, which gave the death penalty to anyone guilty of breaking a machine. The state hanged 60-70 Luddites during the time the law was on the books. However, most of the time, the courts used other laws to convict them.
Today in Labor History February 26, 1894: In France, Jean Grave was charged and sentenced to two years in prison for publishing the book “La société mourante et l'anarchie.” However, the trial only served to popularize the book, which was quickly translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Yiddish. Voltairine De Cleyre produced an English translation in 1899. Novelist Octave Mirbeau (“Torture Garden” and “Diary of a Chambermaid”) wrote the preface. Grave was born on October 16, 1854 and died in 1939. He was active in the international anarchist communism movement and was editor Le Révolté, La Révolte and Les Temps Nouveaux, and a number of important anarchist books.
Also, about a blog post, I have never written a blog before, Someone have any pointers? I will be reversing a malware soon and thought of both recording and writing about my methodology and thought process.
Messages/etc/is all welcome! Even if you do not have any experience in reversing malwares!
Today in Labor History February 23, 1882: B. Traven was born on this date in Poznan, Poland. Traven’s real name was probably Ret Marut. He was active in the Bavarian uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919. When the German state quashed the Republic and started arresting and executing activists, he fled to Mexico, where he began writing novels. Traven was a brilliant satirist and wrote novels sympathetic to workers and peasants, including the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Death Ship,” “The White Rose,” as well as his Jungle Series of novel depicting the plight of Indigenous campesinos in Mexico.
If you like your romances dark, intense and violent, read Devil's Own. Because when a deal’s made with The Devil, someone always has to pay.
By 51, Miranda Fleming had become a world famous artist. She lacked nothing, except a relationship. In fact, in her entire dating life not one man had ever asked for a third date. She often joked she was the oldest living virgin.
He's the actual Devil! Satan. Lucifer, the Antichrist, the Beast. So many names, the list went on and on. A taker of souls, a dealer of desires and greed, the ultimate evil.
And now it was time to collect on the deal made about Miranda years ago. He’d kept her pure since then, just so he could torment and torture her.
That is, until he tires of her. https://www.evernightpublishing.com/devils-own-by-suzy-shearer/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095XGQ2HZ/
Today in Labor History February 20, 1931: An anarchist uprising in Encarnación, Paraguay briefly transformed the city into the revolutionary Encarnación Commune. Students and workers created popular assemblies to run the city. They tried to create communes in other towns, too, but the authorities thwarted their attempts. When the authorities began to retake Encarnacion, many of the insurrectionists stole steamboats and fled to Brazil. Along the way, they attacked yerba mate companies and burned records related to indentured servants. Gabriel Casaccia alluded to the uprising in his novel “Los Herederos.”
Today in Labor History February 19, 1807: The authorities arrested former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr for treason. They alleged that he was behind a plot to create an independent country in the southwest of the U.S., but had to acquit him for lack of evidence. Some believed he intended to take Texas or all of Mexico, but accounts vary as to how many supporters he had (anywhere from 40 to 7,000). In 1808, he traveled to England and attempted to garner support for a revolution in Mexico. The Brits kicked him out of the country. Prior to all this, while still vice president he had killed Alexander Hamilton in an illegal duel. He was never tried and all charges against him were dropped. Gore Vidal wrote an historical novel, “Burr,” written in the form of a memoir by Burr. The novel undoes the traditional hagiographies of America’s founding fathers, portraying them as the greedy, self-serving and often times incompetent men they really were. It was the first in his Narratives of Empire series.
Today in Labor History February 18, 1943: The Nazis arrested the members of the White Rose movement. The activist group called for opposition to the Nazi regime through an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign. The Nazis put on a show trial in which none of the defendants were allowed to speak. They executed Hans and Sophie Schol, and Christoph Probst on February 22, 1943. White Rose leaflets openly denounced the persecution and mass murder of the Jews. They might have taken their name from the poem "Cultivo una rosa blanca," by Cuban revolutionary and poet, Jose Marti. Alternatively, they may have gotten it from the B. Traven novel, “Die Weiße Rose” (The White Rose).” Traven served on the Central Council of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. He escaped the terror that followed the crushing of the Republic and fled to Mexico, where he wrote numerous novels, including “Death Ship” and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
Today in Labor History February 10, 1898: Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht was born. Brecht was a doctor, poet and playwright. He fled the Nazis only to be persecuted in the U.S. by HUAC during the Cold War. He is most well-known for his play, “The Three Penny Opera.” He also wrote “Mother Courage and Her Children” and “The Days of the Commune,” about the Paris Commune. Additionally, he wrote poetry and composed the lyrics to many of the songs performed in his plays, like “Mack the Knife” and “Alabama Song” (AKA Whiskey Bar).
Today in Labor History January 31, 1971: For the second time in six months, rioting broke out during an anti-war protest in East Los Angeles. Police fired into the crowd, killing one protester. The anti-war demonstrations were organized by the Chicano Moratorium. Chicanos were dying at a higher rate during the Vietnam War than white Americans. During the August 29, 1970 protests, police killed three people, including Journalist Ruben Salazar. Oscar Zeta Acosta portrayed Salazar in his 1973 novel, “The Revolt of the Cockroach People.” Hunter S. Thompson portrayed Acosta as his “Samoan attorney” in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
Today in Labor History January 31, 1912: A General Strike began in Brisbane, Australia. It lasted until March 6. The strike was a response to the suspension of tramway workers for wearing union badges. Within a few days, the strike committee became the de facto government of Brisbane. No work could be done in the city without the committee’s permission. They created their own independent police force and provided ambulance service for the city. They issued strike coupons, redeemable at stores that were in solidarity with the strikers. People wore red ribbons to show their support and even put them on their dogs and dray horses. On the second day of the strike, 25,000 people marched, with another 50,000 supporters watching. On Black Friday, February 2, the cops attacked a women’s march with batons. Emma Miller, a trade unionist and suffragist who was in her 70s and weighed less than 80 pounds, pulled out a hat pin and stabbed the rump of the police commissioner’s horse. The horse reared and threw the commissioner. As a result of his injury, he limped for the rest of his life. The courts ultimately ruled in favor of the unionists, and their right to wear union badges while on the job. Errol O’Neill wrote a play about the strike, “Faces in the Street.”
Today in Labor History January 31, 1606: Guy Fawkes jumped to his death moments before his execution for treason. Guy Fawkes belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes, who had converted to Catholicism, also fought in the 80-Years War for Catholic Spain against the Dutch. He later traveled to Spain seeking support for a Catholic rebellion in England. The English tortured him into confessing the names of his co-conspirators. Brits have celebrated Guy Fawkes Day ever since, usually accompanied by fireworks and burning effigies, traditionally the pope, but recently they’ve burned effigies of Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Margaret Thatcher, instead. James Sharpe, professor of history at the University of York, called Fawkes "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions." Numerous historical novels and children’s books have been written about Fawkes, including William Harrison Ainsworth's 1841 historical romance “Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder Treason.”
Today in Labor History January 21, 1525: Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz and George Blaurock founded the Swiss Anabaptist movement by baptizing each other and breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union. The Anabaptists were considered Radical Reformers. They preached against hate, killing, violence, taking oaths, participating in use of force or any military actions and against participation in civil government. They also believed in separation of church and state. However, some Anabaptists went even further, like those in the Munster Commune, who called for the absolute equality of man in all matters, including the distribution of wealth. They called upon the poor of the region to join them in sharing all the wealth of the town. Many also believed in polygamy and free love. Not surprisingly, both the Roman Catholics and the nascent Lutherans persecuted them heavily. This history is wonderfully portrayed in the epic novel, “Q” by the Italian fiction collective, Luther Blissett.