when both people & animals lived on earth,
a person could become an animal if he wanted to
& an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
& sometimes animals
& there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
& what people wanted to happen could happen —
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody could explain this:
That's the way it was.
— Edward Field, "Magic Words,"
translated from the Inuit (Eskimo)
NOVEMBER 23
DANIEL DELEON
American radical, helped found the Wobblies.
ST. CLEMENTS DAY. Procession of blacksmiths & (mad) hatters.
____________________________
1170 -- [BC] Pyramid Scheme?: First recorded strike for better working
conditions & pay, takes place in Egypt, by pyramid laborers who are
tired of belaboring the point.
"They say the Pharaohs built the pyramids.
Do you think one Pharaoh dropped one bead of sweat?
We built the pyramids for the Pharaohs
& we're building for them yet."
— Anna Louise Strong
1760 -- French revolutionary Francois-Noel Babeuf lives.
FRANCOIS-NOEL BABEUF 1997 SAINT
Communist leader in the French Revolution, member of the Conspiracy
of Equals, until betrayed to the Directory, when he was captured
& executed.
Opposed to the middle-class degeneration of the revolution. The
Conspiracy of Equals included Buonarroti, Sylvain Maréchal, Jacques
Roux, & Jean Varlet, among others. Babeuf & 30 others were executed,
but Varlet escaped & published "Explosion," one of the first anarchist
proclamations, declaring "Government & revolution are incompatible."
1859 -- US: Western outlaw, gunslinger, Billy the Kid lives.
while i've been going on
the blood from my wrist
has travelled to my heart
& my fingers touch
this soft blue paper notebook
control a pencil that shifts up & sideways
mapping my thinking going its own way
— Michael Ondaatje, Collected Works of Billy the Kid
1883 -- Radical Marxist muralist Jose Orozco lives, Zapatlan, Mexico.
http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.
1903 -- US: Army troops dispatched to Cripple Creek, Colorado to put
down a rebellion by striking coal miners. Paid by mine owners & the State,
General Sherman Bell & his men arrive & throw 600 union workers into a
military bullpen, holding them for weeks without charges.
When a lawyer appears with a writ of habeas corpus, the General says, (quote)
"Habeas corpus, hell!
We'll give 'em post mortems!"
1907 -- A Tribute to Mother Jones, by Eugene V. Debs, published in
"The Appeal to Reason"; later reprinted in Debs: His Life, Writing & Speeches
(Charles Kerr Cooperative Publishing, 1910).
By 1902 Julius Wyland's Kansas-based socialist newspaper,
"An Appeal to Reason", was the fourth largest weekly in the US,
with a circulation of 150,000, peaking in 1913 with 750,000 subscribers.
http://recollectionbooks.com/
1935 -- Ethel Leginska (1886-1970) becomes the first woman
to write an opera — & conduct it. Leginska was tragically cut down
in her prime, killed by a lightning bolt.
Her epitaph?
"Even God found Her a good Conductor."
1955 -- Milly Witkop Rocker (1877-1955) dies. Anarchist, labor
organizer, lifelong companion of Rudolf Rocker.
http://recollectionbooks.com/
http://recollectionbooks.com/
1958 -- US: Astrology Works?! Ronald & Nancy Reagan appear together
in the "GE Theatre" production of "A Turkey for President".
1987 -- Max Sartin, 97, dies, Salt Lake City, Utah.
True name Raffaele Schiavina, he was imprisoned & later expelled
from the "land of the free" in 1919 for anti-war activities. Slipped back
into the US where he published, for 45 years, the weekly magazine
"Adunata dei Refrattari" (longest lasting paper of the Italian-American
anarchist movement).
http://flag.blackened.net/ksl/
2000 -- US: Florida...
State of Utah urges Florida to throw its votes
to their favorite son,
sending U. Utah Phillips to the White House.
Utah Phillips, a man who once ran for president of the U.S.A.
on the "Sloth & Indolence" ticket.
"The Earth is not dying — it is
being killed. & the people
who are killing it have names
& addresses."
— U. Utah Phillips
State of the Union address
____________________________
"Every man is a fool for at least five minutes every day;
wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit."
— Elbert Hubbard, printer / publisher
____________________________
— Anti-GoodConductor, 1997-3000, in perpetuity, more or less
No comments:
Post a Comment