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The house of cards When the wind blows... The so-called "Waldorf transcripts", made by an unknown diplomat over a meeting between Jack Straw and Colin Powell on Feb 5th 2003, suggest that both men were wary about the available evidence about Iraq's WMD ("see here for the Guardian":http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,967548,00.html article). This is yet another blast on the house of cards built in support of the war. The wind just doesn't die down does it? The 'intelligence' that the twisted evil(tm) Iraq monsters under the command of Arch-villain Saddam were so morally corrupt that they were going to use chemical weapons to defend Baghdad "was also a load of old stinking horse shit.":http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,967604,00.html Of course, now that the deed has been done, with the deaths of some 5-10'000 civilians, some 13'500-43'000 soldiers (who have parents and brothers/sisters, aunts and partners remember?), the long term deaths caused by unexploded ordinance, the destruction of the core bureaucratic infrastructure (158 of the 160 buildings were looted and burned), the looting of museums and libraries including priceless artifacts, the wilful "vandalism by American soldiers":http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,958429,00.html of precious archeological sites, and the general profound human trauma that violence and war brings, Paul Wolfowitz has told us that, well, you know, the Bush Munchkins also did it "to remove troops from Saudi Arabia.":http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html Couldn't they just pulled troops from Saudi first? And if one wants an independent enquiry in which the Government of the UK can be made accountable over this charade, "then you may as well forget it.":http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,966692,00.html The committee which is the only authorised way to question the intelligence community, is accountable to Tony Blair and not Parliament, and Emperor Blair can veto its recommendations. Watch him duck, watch him dive, watch him spin - but you'll never catch him... See individual entry…

You too can play "Interrogate an Immigrant" AMAZING! With a lack of understanding that beggars belief, the "BBC is floating plans to make a show":http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,967477,00.html in which real cases of asylum seekers (played by actors), will be 'interviewed' on TV and then viewers can vote on whether to kick them out of the country or not. A great addition would be if those asylum seekers who were refused entry could be projected on exploding jet chairs and guided by satellite by celebrities back to their countries of origin. Those who hit their targets could win prizes for the charity of their choice. I'm sure the Daily Mail / Telegraph reading ignorant masses would love watching immigrants being blasted out of the country. How low can television really get? This is an issue that desperately need attention. Intelligent planning, and making a season of programs for prime time TV, featuring documentaries and satire on issues surrounding immigration and asylum would be sorely needed. I saw an advert that Eddie Izzard is presenting a program on the mongrel blood of the English (which xenophobic Daily Mail readers often fail to realise), we need more of this sort of programming (breaking down already muddy racial boundaries). But instead, we get game shows where the public can click out asylum seekers... See individual entry…

Iraqiville Update "The US has FINALLY found evidence of WMD, unfortunatly they are within the US itself":http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,965231,00.html. "Update on the latest 'evidence' of WMD":http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=410484 in Iraq. See "more here":http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,965993,00.html, and "here":http://194.183.22.90/ips%5Ceng.nsf/vwWebMainView/D00C2E08680F3029C1256D34004B2643/?OpenDocument. "More dishonest tango moves on the 'Dossier' of Evidence from the UK government.":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,966208,00.html "A rough estimate that 13,500 to 43,000 soldiers died in the Iraq 'liberation'.":http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,965089,00.html "Washington was warned about the fall into chaos after the fall of Saddam well in advance, and failed to do anything.":http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,965067,00.html See individual entry…

Comparative Destruction A "series of articles":http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,965463,00.html in the Guardian today outlines the comparative benefits that international intervention has made in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. See individual entry…

Speechless "If this is true, then simply fuck the US administration to hell and back":http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,963176,00.html See individual entry…

Bechtel Juice Now fuelling the great new-look(tm) Iraq - super powered "Bechtel Juice.":http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=409086 A powerful concoction made with secret ingredients[1], it will have the power to "energise":http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/business/yourmoney/25ENER.html?ei=5062&en=83d1428f829c3604&ex=1054440000&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position= and "revitalise.":http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=409095 Already put to great use in revolutionising those pathetic Afghans and turning them into modern wonders, it is slated to do even more good things(tm) to Iraqiville (the new Corporate name for the 'too-foreign' sounding 'Iraq').
[1] Well, we know about chairman and chief executive Riley Bechtel, also a member of President Bush's export council, Jack Sheehan, a senior vice-president who 'coincidentally' also happens to be on the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board (a chum of my friend Perle no doubt) and George Schultz, a former republican secretary of state — but I'm sure there's more creamy goodness inside! See individual entry…

The Success of 'Democratisation' There is a nice "article in the Observer":http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,962905,00.html on the current state of affairs in Afghanistan. bq. Once again, statistics highlight the staggering scale of the Western betrayal. In Bosnia there was one peacekeeper for every 113 people, in East Timor every 66, in Kosovo every 48. There is one Isaf soldier for every 5,380 Afghans. Without an international security presence the Afghan countryside has fallen back into the hands of the warlords and their militias, conservatively estimated at some 200,000 strong. The international presence is feebly trying to counter-balance the power of the warlords by building up the central government security framework. So far those attempts have been at worst disastrous and at best meaningless. Interestingly, donors have pledged just $300million in reconstruction of the road network. That is the same amount that the US administration is spending on rebuilding its own Embassy in Kabul - they care more about their posh offices and security aparatus, than on opening up *vital* road networks to stimulate the Afghan economy. Yet no questions are asked, little publicity in the mainstream press at why the US deems its own Embassy more worthwhile than rebuilding an infrastructure it has been complicit in destroying (first through funding of the Mujahideen, and then through a massive air bombardment). See individual entry…

Brilliant Summary by Arundhati Roy The transcript of a "wonderful speech gave by Arundhati Roy can be found here. ":http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0518-01.htm Here are some snatches: bq. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recently declared that U.S. freedoms are "not the grant of any government or document, but?.our endowment from God." (Why bother with the United Nations when God himself is on hand?) So here we are, the people of the world, confronted with an Empire armed with a mandate from heaven (and, as added insurance, the most formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in history). Here we are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy cutters. Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb).
The last building on the ORHA list of 16 sites to be protected was the Ministry of Oil. It was the only one that was given protection. Perhaps the occupying army thought that in Muslim countries lists are read upside down?
Television tells us that Iraq has been "liberated" and that Afghanistan is well on its way to becoming a paradise for women-thanks to Bush and Blair, the 21st century's leading feminists. In reality, Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed. Its people brought to the brink of starvation. Its food stocks depleted. And its cities devastated by a complete administrative breakdown. Iraq is being ushered in the direction of a civil war between Shias and Sunnis. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has lapsed back into the pre-Taliban era of anarchy, and its territory has been carved up into fiefdoms by hostile warlords.
Undaunted by all this, on the 2nd of May Bush the Lesser launched his 2004 campaign hoping to be finally elected U.S. President. In what probably constitutes the shortest flight in history, a military jet landed on an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which was so close to shore that, according to the Associated Press, administration officials acknowledged "positioning the massive ship to provide the best TV angle for Bush's speech, with the sea as his background instead of the San Diego coastline." President Bush, who never served his term in the military, emerged from the cockpit in fancy dress - a U.S. military bomber jacket, combat boots, flying goggles, helmet. Waving to his cheering troops, he officially proclaimed victory over Iraq. He was careful to say that it was "just one victory in a war on terror ? [which] still goes on."
It was important to avoid making a straightforward victory announcement, because under the Geneva Convention a victorious army is bound by the legal obligations of an occupying force, a responsibility that the Bush administration does not want to burden itself with. Also, closer to the 2004 elections, in order to woo wavering voters, another victory in the "War on Terror" might become necessary.
The Washington-based Center for Public Integrity found that 9 out of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board are connected to companies that were awarded defense contracts worth 76 billion dollars between the years 2001 and 2002. One of them, Jack Sheehan, a retired Marine Corps general, is a senior vice president at Bechtel, the giant international engineering outfit. Riley Bechtel, the company chairman, is on the President's Export Council. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is also on the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group, is the chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. When asked by the New York Times whether he was concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest, he said, "I don't know that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it. But if there's work to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it." See individual entry…

Werckmeister Harmonies

I went to see Werckmeister Harmonies (directed by Béla Tarr ) with Gabriele last night. After seeing Russian Ark, and reading that Werckmeister Harmonies (based on the book "The melancholy of resistance" by László Krasznahorkai) made Russian Ark look zippy, we kind of knew what to expect. A surreal story told in black & white in a kind of Tarkovsky style - it is apparantly a zippy film for Tarr (whose last film Sátántangó was 7½ hours long) at only 145minutes (and only 39 shots!). The 'story' is about the slow metered inwards destruction of a small town, seen indirectly via the experiences of Janos Valushka (played by a German, Lars Rudolph) as he walks and interacts with his fellow townsfolk. He is an emotionally detached, vunerable, eccentric outsider (like a village idiot in a still emotionally detached, but clearly placed community), yet the majority of relationships shown in the film are through him. The opening scene is beautifully comic, Janos choreographs a trancendental telling of a full eclipse using drunks in a local bar - all shot in one take.

The muted and emotionally isolated equilibrium in the town is disrupted when a giant stuffed whale (being exhibited along with a circus freak called 'the Prince') arrives in the town square. The arrival of the whale at night is again shot in an amazing slow single take. The Prince is a malevolent character, who speaks of a philosohy of nihilism, and is followed by a group of desperate 'others'. The film doesn't so much tell a story, as a sequence of visual impressions give us a framework on which to construct 'our' film.

The path to destruction is patiently observered yet always inevitable. The final scenes of destruction are brutal yet beautiful. The pointlessness(circularity) of nihilism is highlighted when the violent destruction of a hospital and senseless beating of it's patients suddenly halts at the glowing vision of an old naked male patient cowering in the shower (a scene of amazing beauty). Law and order are restored in the town, yet Janos, who is always framed as the outsider of the community, seems to be the one who has paid the highest price - he goes insane. A very beautiful and elliptical film…

A brilliant interview with Béla Tarr can be found here, showing a director as hard to objectify as his films. Here is my favourite part, where the reviewers struggle, and fail spectacularly, to get what they want out of him. The whole interview is filled with these elliptical encounters:

FD & MLC: Thematically, your films' depiction of a world on the brink of catastrophe seems to link up with a lot of other films made lately, Pola X for example.

BT: I'm sorry, in the past four years I haven't seen anything.

FD & MLC: Yes, I know...

BT: I just wanted to tell you I know nothing...

FD & MLC: I know, but I just think there is a trend in world cinema towards this sort of existential terror and chaos.

BT: No, I just wanted to make a movie about this guy who is walking up and down the village and has seen this whale... And, you know when we are working we don't talk about any theoretical things. We only ever have practical problems. And it's the same with the writer. Mostly we just talk about life. How it's going on the street. We never talk about theoretical things. We never talk about Chaos or existential things. We just talk about someone coming into the room and he wants something and the other guy who is sitting there doesn't want these things. That's all.

See individual entry…

Lilya 4-Ever

When something transcends the 'intellectualisation' of that thing and reaches so very deep into the pulsing blood-red of our inside - that is art. Art isn't about accurate oil paintings of bowls of fruit, or Velázquez masturbating images of the rich and/or dwarves - it is about challenging the indescribable 'feeling' of experience. That is why paintings by the 'masters' very rarely classify as 'art' to me - and cinema is actually one of the peaks of true 'artistic' endeavour (and not only 'entertainment'). Paintings by Michelangelo and the other poster boys of 'classical art' leave me cold - we are told time-and-again that this is 'art', conditioned to restrict Duchamp's urinal to paraphernalia. Well, classical painting is the dull paraphernalia of what I consider 'true' art - and cinema sits at the core of this vision.

And so Lukas Moodysson (also the director of Together & Show me Love¹), has achieved in Lilya 4-Ever a deserved claim to 'masterpiece'. I really can't overstate what a profoundly intense and fucking amazing film this is. I can't (don't want to) approach it intellectually, but it really devastated me emotionally.

It is the story of Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), a 16 year girl in Russia, and her slow slide into prostitution and eventual trafficking to a pimp in Sweden. Core to the film is the desperate and tender friendship with a younger boy, Volodya (Artiom Bogucharsky), who often sleeps on the street because of the whims of an abusive father. I won't really objectify the film into description - it is a film to be felt - combining a transcendent poetry with the raw bloody viscera of reality. It is wonderfully directed and structured, brilliantly acted and flawless in so many ways.

Yolanda (my friend whose MSc dissertation will be on trafficking of women) pointed out (rightly) that the film is probably not representative of many women's experiences of sex-trafficking. Many trafficked sex-workers often live together and have this as a kind of support network, something that Lilya never experiences. I agree it may not be representative, yet this film is about the experience of one girl, and was not for me a film whose aim was overtly 'political' (unlike In This World ), but it was a portrait of a life, a fellow being. It was, from my point above, a real and profound portrait, not like the trivial craftsmanship² of Raphael, but of the true kind of transcendental art.

¹ See an Interview with him here

² A substantial body of 'classical art' for me is 'just' craftsmanship. Technically impressive and pleasing to the eye - but as reflections that deeply touch us inside and make us think about or challenge our existence (my claim to true art), they fail miserably.

³ Here is a brief sketch I wrote last night in my diary: it is a profound and intense masterpiece. Combining transcendent poetry with the raw bloody viscera of reality - it is a true work of art. Like all such peaks, it has the ability to pierce deep into your heart, and therefore be very disturbing. But the poetry flowing through the film elevates it SO very far above the usual emotional 'shock-tactics' of contrived Hollywood tear-jerkers. A true and profound treasure!

See individual entry…

The blindness of Ignorance As I have sadly and angrily written about "many times before":http://nontroppo.org/blog/archives/categories/asylum_immigration/index.html - I am always *so* saddened when I see people failing to link the figure of the 'asylum seeker' to the political turbulence in the world. People confidently assert Saddam hussein was a torturing monster, a human-rights-abusing psycho, and then moan at how there are too many asylum seekers coming into Britain. Why are people so blind that these two features are linked? Obviously (my pet hobby-horse) the hysterical press coverage exacerbates the latent xenophobia present, but why can't readers tease out the wheat from the chaff (stupidity, laziness or both?) Even sadder, the Government is running scared against losing the support of these Sun/Daily Mail/Telegraph readers, and running like headless chickens trying to placate them. That is not how to shape a comprehensive and effective strategy. "A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/comment/0,11026,955095,00.html?=rss highlights exactly this point. The Government has a responsibility which it has wholly ignored, to try to bring facts rather than hysteria to the public. bq. "...the point of the IPPR's report is to highlight the contradictions between current policy approaches for dealing with the so-called "asylum crisis" and the evidence which exists about why people become refugees in the first place. The tone of the debate in the UK over recent months is indicative of an unwillingness on the part of government - at least publicly - to make the connection between what is going on in the world and those who turn up at our borders seeking protection. Iraqis have been one of the largest group of asylum applicants in this country over the last three years, but very few have been recognised as Convention refugees. Yet the experience of the Iraqi "exiles" - as they have become known - was widely cited as a justification for the decision to go to war. The problem is that the public's understanding of the factors driving migration is not assisted by this approach. They are not helped to make the connections, and therefore the connections remain unmade.
It is in everyone's interests that the public debate on asylum is based on evidence rather than assumption and that it steps back from the day-to-day political rhetoric and public angst that surrounds the issue. Identifying the root causes of forced migration is an important first step in this process." See individual entry…

Clare Short's Claws Well, the amazing saga of Clare Short's position over the Gulf War has come to an end. She has managed to upset both the pro-war (through being clearly against the Iraq invasion), and the anti-war (through not resigning when she said she would) groups. I felt betrayed by her when she stood with the Government - her rebellion then would have probably secured another group of votes against the war (on what was already a *massive* revolt), but probably not enough to cause a vote of confidence in Tony Blair or (because of the war-mongering right wing support) - a lost vote. Maybe trying to make up for the damage to her anti-war position, she has "launched a scathing attack on Tony Blair":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,954752,00.html?=rss and the current mess that is Iraq. This is how she summarised in her "resignation letter:":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,954287,00.html bq. "As you know, I thought the run-up to the conflict in Iraq was mishandled, but I agreed to stay in the government to help support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq. I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached. The security council resolution that you and Jack [Straw, the foreign secretary] have so secretly negotiated contradicts the assurance I have given in the House of Commons and elsewhere about the legal authority of the occupying powers, and the need for a UN-led process to establish a legitimate Iraqi government. This makes my position impossible." For all the flaws of the development process, she was a "brilliant at her job":http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,954387,00.html as International Development secretary. She had hoped that post-Iraq War, that the UK Government could influence the US to open up to a more multilateral and responsible approach (rather naive, eh Clare?). She obviously hadn't bothered reading very much about the crooks currently in the White House, or had hoped the American democratic process could temper the Bush Boys in their dirty game. See individual entry…

Get your Virtue On p(centre). !http://nontroppo.org/blog/images/waron2.gif 423 343!
"Get your cynical views of the Bush administration on":http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war24.html See individual entry…

Bush Boys Still Rolling in the Dirt Perle has been accused AGAIN of "a conflict of interest":http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0507-03.htm with his role on the Pentagon advisory board (he gave private seminars on how to profit from the war!). This is really getting a habit for poor Perle ("see here":http://slate.msn.com/id/2082676/ for how his Libel suit againts all those bad journalists bothering him is going)... On related news, the ever-sweet munchkin Rumsfeld seems "to be in a similar boat to Perle":http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,952289,00.html?=rss who as director of his former company was involved in a $200million deal for a nuclear reactor with North Korea in 2000, yet is now trying to convice us that the very same regime is *evil*. Well, rummy boy, been dealing with 'pure evil®' incarnate have you, not really something an uprighteous Christian who pontificates about good and evil (and uses such speech to justify unleashing devestating wars) should really be doing?... Completing the Munchkin-Kabal, it appears that a subsidiary of Cheney's old firm Haliburton (who still pay him a suspected $1million annually) are "actually operating oilfields in Iraq":http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0507-01.htm and have permission to 'distribute the goods' (i.e. sell the oil!). They have also been accused of running offshore subsiduaries to trade with 'rogue' states, and finally they have been "paying millions of dollars in bribes":http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0509-02.htm to Nigerian officials. Keep the good work up boys... See individual entry…

Globalisation "Here is a nice article":http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,949996,00.html about the purported statistics from the world bank that claim the 'world poor' are getting better off financially. Based on an critique in an "academic paper":http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/ by an economist and a philosopher, the article describes their findings relating to how the World Bank drastically mis-measures 'poverty', finding some disturbing paradoxes: bq. "As the service sector expands in poor nations, the bank's figures will create the impression that the purchasing power of the poor is increasing, whether or not their real economic circumstances have changed. The same false trend is established by a shift to the service sector in rich nations, as one dollar there will then buy a smaller proportion of the total of available goods and services. The relative purchasing power per dollar of the people of poor nations is increased by this measure, even though their absolute cost of living remains unchanged. When house prices boom in New York, the shanty-dwellers of Lusaka appear to get richer." See individual entry…

Tobacco p(centre). !http://nontroppo.org/blog/images/tobacco.gif 143 187! bq. "The Carirí Indians had implored the Grandfather to let them try the flesh of wild pigs, which didn't yet exist. The Greandfather, architect of the Universe, kidnapped the little children of the Carirís and turned them into wild pigs. He created a big tree so that they could escape into the sky.
The people pursued the pigs up the tree from branch to branch and managed to kill a few. The Grandfather ordered the ants to bring down the tree. When it fell, the people suffered broken bones. Ever since that great fall, we all have divided bones and so are able to bend our fingers and legs or tilt our bodies.
With the dead boars a great banquet was made in the village.
The people besought the Grandfather to come down from the sky, where he was minding the children saved from the hunt, but he preferred to stay up there.
The Grandfather sent tobacco to take his place among men. Smoking, the people talked with God."

CREATION MYTH, taken from Memory of Fire, Eduardo Galeano I don't smoke, and I never have, but I love this story of the creation of tobacco (even if they end up eating their own children!). If I was to smoke, I would like to use tobacco in this 'ritual' way[1], lost in the forest somewhere communicating with God through burnt leaves. I dislike however, the role of tobacco in our society - successively conditioned into us that it is 'cool' through manipulation by the advertising $$$ of massive Corporations. Commercial tobacco is chemically treated and smells like shit (comparing it to 'real' tobacco - somewhat analogous to the 'Star Bucks' version of real coffee), I really never understand why people smoke this crap[2] (well, apart from that the nicotine is addictive...) Those massive Corporation, who actively seek to misinform and damage (Inter)national health regulation regarding tobacco use, have managed to "convince the US Government to disrupt":http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=402305 the new WHO(World Health Organisation) treaty on Tobacco. Yet another example of how the Bush administration is for sale to the highest bidder, in this case Phillip Morris who was the largest corporate contributor to the Republican party.
[1] I know it is 'orientalist' and romantic, but, well, you know... [2] I think everyone should have the right to smoke however, unless it infringes on my right to not be affected by it! See individual entry…

The New Order "Nice to see the boys getting their pay":http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,944742,00.html in Iraq. The man chosen to lead the rebuilding of Iraqi agriculture is the former executive of the biggest grain exporting company in America. "Oxfam":http://www.oxfam.org/eng/ considers it the equivalent of placing Saddam Hussein as chair of a human rights committe!!! There would have been *many* other candidates to choose from among the vibrant US NGO(Non Governmental Organisation) groups. We know the wolves have been at the carcass of the Oil industry, but it looks as if little else will be left after the bones are stripped clean anywhere else. The people of Iraq should have a say in how their economy is integrated into world markets, but the US obviously has better ideas. Being forced to march through the complex minefield of neo-liberal economics is not the only way Iraq can rebuild, but with a gun pointed at its forehead, Iraq has little alternative... See individual entry…

May Day Here is the Speech by August Spies, one of the 4 men convicted and hanged for the Haymarket Riots of 1886 with no evidence. This was the key event that sparked the flowering of the modern May Day Holiday. bq. "Anarchism is on trial! If that is the case your honor, very well; you may sentence me, for I am an anarchist. I believe that the state of castes and classes--the state where one class dominates over and lives upon the labor of another class, and calls this order--yes, I believe that this barbaric form of social organization, with its legallized plunder and murder, is doomed to die and make room for a free society, voluntary association, or universal brotherhood, if you like. You may pronounce the sentence upon me, honorable judge, but let the world know that in A.D. 1886, in the state of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they believed in a better future; because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice!...
You gentlemen, are the revolutionists! You rebel against the effects of social conditions which have tossed you, by the fair hands of fortune, into a magnificent paradise. Without inquiring, you imagine that no one else has a right in that place. You insist that you are the chosen ones, the sole proprietors. The forces that tossed you into the paradise, the industrial forces, are still at work. They are growing more active and intense from day to day. Their tendency is to elevate all mankind to the same level, to have all humanity share in the paradise you now monopolize. You in your blindness, think you can stop the tidal wave of civilization and human emancipation by placing a few policemen, a few Gattling guns and some regiments of militia on the shore; you think you can frighten the rising waves back into the unfathomable depths whence they have arisen by erecting a few gallows in the perspective. You oppose the natural course of things, you are the real revolutionists. You alone are the conspirators and destructionists!...
Look upon the economic battlefields! Behold the carnage and plunder of the Christian patricians ( upper class )! Accompany me to the quarters of the wealth creators in this city. Go with me to the half starved miners of the Hocking Valley. Look at the pariahs ( out casts ) in the Mongahela Valley, and many other mining districts in this country, or pass along the railroads of that great and most orderly and law abiding citizen Jay Gould. And tell me whether this order has in it any moral principle for which it should be preserved. I say that preservation of such an order is criminal--is murderous. It means the preservation of the systematic destruction of children and women in factories. It means the preservation of enforced idleness of large armies of men, and their degradation. It means the preservation of intemperance, and sexual as well as intellectual prostitution. It means the preservation of misery, want, and servility on the one hand, and the dangerous accumulation of spoils, idleness, voluptuousness, and tyranny on the other. It means the preservation of vice in every form. And last but not least, it means the preservation of the class struggle, of strikes, riots, and bloodshed. That is your "order" gentlemen. Yes, and it is worthy of you to be the champions of such an order. You are eminently fitted for that role. You have my compliments!" "See here for more of the History of May Day":http://www.mayweek.ab.ca/history.html See individual entry…