JANUARY 5

MANUEL GONZÁLEZ PRADA

Perúvian poet, anarquista, national librarian.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/GonzalezPradaManuel.htm

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TWELFTH NIGHT/EPIPHANY EVE.

OLD CHRISTMAS EVE. Old Christmas Eve/Twelfth Night: with one blow, boys would nail the tailcoats of window shoppers to the window frame of pastry shops.

EVE OF WONDER.

England: TWELFTH NIGHT REVEL.

Syria: NIGHT OF THE MAGIC MULE.

Syria: NIGHT OF INCREASE.

Southern Syria: NIGHT OF THE MAGIC CAMEL.

ST. AGATHA'S DAY. Also known as Santo Gato, she appears as a cat & can summon storms when angry.

BURNING OF GREENS.

Glastonbury, England: BLOOMING OF GLASTONBURY THORN, offshoot of the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.

DISCORDIAN FESTIVAL OF BLESSED SAINT HUNG MUNG.

Old Bohemia: Beginning of CARNIVAL.

FESTIVAL OF PYROTECHNICS.

EVERY DAY A HOLIDAY DAY.

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1527 -- Switzerland: Felix Manz, first Anabaptist martyr, sentenced to death, Zurich.


1715 -- US: Advertisement in Boston newspaper offered for sale Indian woman "fit for all manner of household work."


1757 -- France: We Gotta Go Now? Attempted assassin of Louis XV torn asunder in public by horses. In a near miss, Robert Damiens attempts to knife the especially worthless Louie.


1781 -- US: Former American General Benedict Arnold, who defected to the British, helps the Redcoats plunder & burn Richmond, Virginia.


1782 -- Poet William Cowper assesses the propensities of John Dryden: "Never, I believe, were such talents & such drudgery united."


1796 -- England: At the Swan Inn at Dunkerton, the father of geology, William Smith writes one lone single sentence his discovery of the mode of identifying strata by the organized fossils respectively imbedded therein...now an axiomatic & fundamental fact of modern geological knowledge.



1821 -- Lord Byron writes in his diary about Sir Walter Scott:

"Wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him."

1825 -- Choose Your Weapon?: Alexandre Dumas, pere, embarking on the career of a romantic at 23, fights his first duel — in which his pants fall down!
http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Dumas/IronMask/



1834 -- US: Kiowa Indians record this as the night the stars fell.


1835 -- US: American feminist Olympia Brown lives, Praire Ronde, Michigan.



1844 -- Perú: Manuel González Prada lives (1844-1918), Lima. Journalist, social critic, anarquista & poet.

Manuel González Prada Noted Perúvian poet, controversial socialist intellectual & polemicist, by 1902 he was committed to anarchist ideals & published numerous works on the social question & emancipation of the individual. Numerous articles on anarchism & related themes which appeared in the Lima newspaper Los Parias (1904-1909), published as Anarquía, which has gone through numerous editions. Briefly head of the National Library of Perú, he resigned following the coup d'etat in 1914.

Several of his collections of poetry were published or translated during his lifetime & well after.

    Aunque desiertos las campiñas sean
Y calcinados muros las ciudades
)Por qué desesperar? Creamos siempre
En un futuro espléndido y radiante.
Vendrán los siglos de soñada gloria,
Tras el horrible, universal combate,
Que siempre fue la dicha de los hombres
Una flor de ruinas y de sangre.

— Manuel González Prada, "38", from Grafitos (Paris, 1937)
http://evergreen.loyola.edu/tward/www/gp/
http://evergreen.loyola.edu/tward/www/gp/libros/grafitos/hombres.htm
http://poeticas.es/?p=208
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Prada

See Free Pages & Hard Times: Anarchist Musings, Manuel Gonzalez Prada (Oxford University, 2003)

Aunque desiertos las campiñas sean Y calcinados muros las ciudades )Por qué desesperar? Creamos siempre En un futuro espléndido y radiante. Vendrán los siglos de soñada gloria, Tras el horrible, universal combate, Que siempre fue la dicha de los hombres Una flor de ruinas y de sangre. Nietzsche No el superhombre ni el quídam, No el Mesías ni Luzbel: Es, más el bluff y la pose, Un don Quijote al revés. Pi y Margall -(Colgadle el sambenito! (No haya con él blandura ni piedad! -)Me dicen su delito? -Escribir en España la verdad. 74 Shelley Al revés de los montes, Se va con la distancia agigantando, Y quién sabe si un tiempo La gran altura excederá de Byron. 79 Tolstoi Don Quijote de la estepa, Cristo chocho y regañón, Fecundus vir predicando La abstinencia en el amor. A la vez de literato, Zapatero remendón; Lleva un tornillo de menos, A no ser que lleve dos. El declara guerra al ocio Y escribiendo de desvela: Hace al año su novela... Hace también su negocio. Hoy altivo, amenazante, Vertiendo luz de sus manos, Alza en un circo de enanos Su cabeza de gigante. http://evergreen.loyola.edu/tward/www/gp/libros/grafitos/hombres.htm

1869 -- US: First Negro Labor Convention held.


1874 -- Léon Jules Leauthier lives, Manosque. Anarchist shoe-maker who stabbed & seriously wounded the Minister of Serbia. Sentenced to life, Leauthier was killed during a prison uprising at ïles du Salut (October 1894).
http://www.ephemanar.net/novembre13.html



1878 -- France: Nelly Roussel lives. Free thinker, anarchiste, feminist. Partner of the sculptor Henri Godet.

Agitated, with Paul Robin, to spread néo-Malthusian ideas, opposing the ideology & laws which repressed contraception & its propaganda. Beautiful speaker of talent, Roussel agitated throughout France, demanding complete freedom for women, founded on new relationships between the sexes. Among her writings: Paroles de combat et d'espoir (1919); Quelques lances rompues pour vos libertés; Trois conférences.
http://books.google.com/books...nelly+roussel&source=web&ots...
http://www.ephemanar.net/decembre18.html
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/ateneovirtual/index.php?title=Nelly_Roussel



1883 -- Eugene Vigo (1883-1917) dies in prison; also known as Miguel Almereyda (anagram: Y'a la merde). Father of the famed French surrealist/anarchiste filmmaker Jean Vigo.

Like his son, French authorities also give Eugene a big fat Zero for Conduct.

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Zero De Conduite (Zero for Conduct)

Jean Vigo was born to Eugene Bonaventure de Vigo, a militant anarchist, & Emily Clero, another young militant, on April 26, 1906 at rue Polonceau in Paris in an attic full of cats. He was nicknamed Nono, after the hero of Jean Grave's children's stories. Eugene Vigo died somewhat mysteriously in a Fresnes prison on August 13, 1917.

1892 -- First successful auroral photograph made.


1892 --

Strange Stuff:

US: Light in the sky (part of series of sightings from Dec-Apr every 27th night), Lyons, NY [Scientific American, May 7, 1892] http://www.resologist.net/lands213.htm

1895 -- Henry James's play Guy Domville opens at the St. James's Theatre in London. When James, arriving too late to assess the audience's reaction, steps forward to cries of "Author! Author!", he is jeered & hissed offstage. At 52, gave up drama & returned to prose.
http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~hathaway/




1895 -- Songster Elizabeth Cotten lives, near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Likes fast freight trains.

http://www.eclectica.org/v1n1/nonfiction/demerlee.html

1895 -- US: Emma Goldman helps organize a benefit ball sponsored by
the joint anarchist groups of New York.



1895 -- France: French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; Dreyfus was the victim of anti-semitism among the military & government seeking a scapegoat for their failures, & only with massive popular protests was he later declared innocent.


1898 -- Federico García Lorca lives. Spanish poet/dramatist. The turning point in Lorca's literary career was the folk music festival Fiesta de Cante Jondo in 1922, where he found inspiration for his works in the traditions of folk & gypsy music.

Murdered by Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Franco's fascists in 1936.

Accused of subversive activity, evidence today suggests that it was a hate crime in response to his homosexuality. His writings were censored until Franco died (1975).

Despite his murder by the government & it's efforts to suppress history, Lorca is now one of the most widely read writers in the world.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fglorca.htm

1898 -- US: Emma Goldman speaks on "The New Woman" (in German) to the Social Science Club in Brooklyn.

During this period, the anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman is in contact with Filipino rebels & helps to support their attempts to gain independence from Spain.

Emma also announces her lecture topics for the year: "Charity," "Patriotism," "Authority," "Majority Rule," "The New Woman," "The Woman Question," & "The Inquisition of Our Postal Service."

1899 -- US: Emma Goldman speaks at a large meeting at
Cooper Union to protest the International Anti-Anarchist Conference in Rome.




1900 -- Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy lives.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/tanguy/
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/surrealism/

1911 -- US: Emma Goldman speaks at the inauguration of the new Ferrer School in New York City.

Also the publishing offices of Mother Earth have moved from 210 East Thirteenth Street to 55 West 28th Street, New York City.

1914 -- US: Ford Motor Company raises its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine hour day to $5 for an eight hour day.
[Sources]


1914 -- US: Under the auspices of the Free Speech League, Emma Goldman addresses a large meeting in Paterson, NJ, to protest recent violations of free speech; other speakers include single-taxer Bolton Hall, Leonard Abbott, & Lincoln Steffens.



1918 -- Russia: The Constituent Assembly in which the Bolsheviks are a minority meets for one day before being suppressed. Earlier in the day a demonstration is fired on by Bolshevik units & several demonstrators are killed.
http://web.archive.org/...fbuch.com/posters.htm

The Bolsheviks & Workers Control 1917-1921: The State & Counter-Revolution:
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html



1919 -- Germany: Gottfried Feder founds the German Workers' Party, a political party that would later evolve into the Nazi Party. Among a number of extremist political groups operating in Germany after World War I, the relatively unknown Workers' Party combined socialist economics with militant German nationalism & an opposition to democracy.

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In 1919, Adolf Hitler, a disenchanted veteran acting as an snitch for the army, comes across the Workers' Party while spying on the activities of small political parties.

Fascinated by the ideological potential of the party's nationalist & racist ideals, within months he is leader of the political organization, changing its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party, later abbreviated to the Nazi Party.

In the early 1920s, the ranks of the Nazi Party swell with resentful Germans who sympathize with the party's bitter hatred of the democratic government of Germany, leftist politics, & German Jews.

Hitler learned to discern in the "Eternal Jew" the symbol & cause of all chaos, corruption & destruction in culture, politics & the economy. The press, prostitution, syphilis, capitalism, Marxism, democracy & pacifism — all were so many means which "the Jew" exploited in his conspiracy to undermine the German nation & the purity of the creative Aryan race.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html

Springtime for Hitler & Germany,
Deutschland is happy & gay.
We're marching to a faster pace,
Look out, here comes the master race.

       — Mel Brooks' The Producers

1919 -- Germany: Spartacists, led by Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg, head a revolt to renew the November revolution — which lasts six days (in Berlin); both are murdered by the so-called "democratic" left on the 15th.

"We must take life as it comes, courageously, undismayed & smiling — despite everything."

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/luxembur.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091869/recommendations



1921 -- Friedrich Durrenmatt, novelist & dramatist (The Visit), lives, Konolfingen, Bern.




1930 -- China: Wizard of Oz? Mao Tse-tung writes "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire."
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/facehugger/pdog.html



1932 -- Umberto Eco — literary critic, novelist, semiotician — lives, Alessandria, Italy.

Is A Cult Of The Pendulum Born?

http://www.reocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/5999/index2.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ueco.htm

1933 -- US: Golden Gate Bridge work commences in Frisco, California. Bridge opens May 27, 1937.


1934 -- US: Both the National & American Leagues agree on a uniform size baseball to be used. It was the first time in 33 years that both leagues used the same size ball...much less agreed on anything.

1936 -- England: Emma Goldman lectures to the Leicester Secular Society on "Traders in Death (The International Munitions Clique)."

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Emma begins a lecture tour, hopeful she can establish a lecture base in London for six to eight months a year & spend the summers in St. Tropez.

The death of King George V on Jan. 20, however, plunges the country into mourning, resulting in poor attendance at her lectures. Also during this month are the deaths of friends Louise Bryant, journalist & companion of the late John Reed, & Dr. William Robinson, an early birth control advocate in the US.

1937 -- US: Abraham Lincoln Brigade forms to fight against the Fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War.
http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/history/spain/
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1984/nationalism.htm


1938 -- Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o lives. Anti-colonialist, Fanonist Marxist, whose work includes novels, plays, short stories, & essays, ranging from literary & social criticism to children's literature. Adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

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His novel A Grain of Wheat (1967) marked his embrace of Fanonist Marxism. He subsequently renounced English, Christianity, & the name James Ngugi as colonialist, & began to write in his native Gikuyu & Swahili. The uncensored political message of his 1977 play "Ngaahika Ndeenda" (I Will Marry When I Want) provoked the then Kenyan Vice-President Daniel arap Moi to order his arrest. While detained in the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, he wrote the first modern novel in Gikuyu, Caitaani mutharaba-Ini (Devil on the Cross), on prison-issued toilet paper.
http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/

1941 -- England: Friendly Fire: Amy Johnson 'disappears' in a plane over the Thames; it is later revealed that she has been shot down by the British.
Source: [Calendar Riots]



1942 -- US: Great American patriot, John B. Hughes of the Mutual Broadcasting Company, opens an attack on Japanese Americans in California.

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He charges they are engaged in espionage & their dominance in produce production & control of the food supply are part of a master war plan. The press attack is joined by "patriotic" organizations & white farming interests who will benefit financially from dispossessing these Americans.

In this context of racism & war hysteria, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Roosevelt authorizes interning west-coast Japanese Americans in remote desert concentration camps.

http://web.archive.org/...sfsu.edu/tygiel/Hist427/1940sphotos/internment/internment.htm
http://www.janm.org/nrc/resources.php

1943 -- Black American botanist George Washington Carver dies.



1945 -- Japan: Pilots receive the first order to become Kamikaze, or "Divine Wind."

The suicidal blitz of the Kamikazes reveals Japan's desperation in the final months of World War II. Most of Japan's top pilots are dead, but youngsters need little training to take planes full of explosives & crash them into ships. At Okinawa, they sank 30 ships & killed almost 5,000 Americans.

1957 -- Hungary: Reviewing Red Army occupation forces, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Khruschev says: In Hungary, everything is now in order."
http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/history/hungary.html


1959 -- "Problems, problems. Car started missing like hell last night...
hotel room, Tacoma, Washington"

— Mel Lyman, Diary of a Young artist

http://www.trussel.com/lyman/mirror.htm



1960 -- Spain: Anarchiste guérilla Francisco Sabaté dies after a shoot-out with fasciste Guardia Civil. Wounded yesterday, he escaped, but is killed today in San Celoni by a sometén (Catalan militia).

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This episode causes a national sensation, a survival of the spirit from the old resistance days.

Sabaté figures in at least two films, including Behold The Pale Horse, with Gregory Peck as a character based closely on this anarchist fighter. An excellent biography by Antonio Téllez, Sabaté, guérilla urbaine en Espagne 1945-1960, was translated by Stuart Christie & published in English.

See the Anarchist Encyclopedia page for Sabaté,
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/SabateFrancisco.htm

Sabater Llopart



1961 -- US: "Hello... I'm Mr. Ed!" — "A horse is a horse, of course of course"... some of you actually know the lyrics! "Mr. Ed", the talking horse, débuts for a six-year run on TV.


1963 -- Co-founder of Chess records, Leonard Chess, tells Billboard, "As it stands today, there's virtually no difference between rock & roll, pop & rhythm & blues. The music has completely overlapped."
http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/landmarksweb/web/landmarkdetails.htm?lanId=1267&counter=43


1964 -- England: First automatic ticket barrier on the London Underground:

"Why should others pay while we travel for free?"
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1967 -- US: Inaugural message of Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Ronald Reagan, California's 33rd governor, delivered during ceremonies in the Rotunda of the State Capitol at midnight.

Just before the swearing in, the new governor turns to US Senator George Murphy — a former movie song-&-dance man also, & says,

"Well George, here we are on the late show again."

[Source]




1968 -- US: Dr. Spock, opposed to the Vietnam War, indicted for conspiring to violate draft law, along with Coffin, Mitchell Goodman (married to Denise Levertov), Michael Ferber, & Marcus Raskin for delivering draft cards (October 1967).

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Dr. Benjamin Spock, William Sloan Coffin the chaplain of Yale University, novelist Mitchell Goodman, Michael Ferber, a grad student at Harvard, & peace activist Marcus Raskin are indicted on charges of conspiracy to encourage violations of the draft laws by a grand jury in Boston. The charges are the result of actions taken at a protest rally the previous October at the Lincoln Memorial. The four are convicted & Raskin acquitted on June 14th.

http://afsc.org/our-work

1968 -- Czechoslovakia: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Antonin Novotny, Stalinist ruler, is succeeded as Communist Party leader by Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak who supports diplomatic reforms.

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Two months later, Novotny resigns the presidency & Dubcek introduces a series of far-reaching political & economic reforms, including increased freedom of speech & an end to state censorship.

Dubcek's efforts to establish "Communism with a human face" are celebrated across the country, & the brief period of freedom becomes known as the "Prague Spring."

In August, the Soviet Union responds to Dubcek's liberal reforms with a Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

1970 -- US: Joseph A. Yablonski, unsuccessful reform candidate to unseat "Tough Tony" Boyle as President of the United Mine Workers, murdered, along with his wife & daughter, in their Clarksville, Pennsylvania home by assassins acting on Boyle's orders. Boyle was later convicted of the killing. West Virginia miners went on strike the following day in protest.


1970 -- US: Bastion of democracy, the State of Mississippi, integrates the first three districts of its public schools.


1971 -- US: 19 arrested in "Homes Not War" protest, Tucson, Arizona.


1971 -- Sonny Liston World Champ heavyweight boxer (1962-64), found dead at 36.

1979 -- American jazz great Charles Mingus dies, Cuernavaca, Mexico...

Beneath the Underdog.

MINGUS
Daily Bleed Patron Saint 2002. Great Black American jazz composer, performer.

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"Not long before I worked with a poet named Patchen.

He was wearing his scarlet jacket & sitting on a stool on a little stage in a theatre you walk upstairs to down on 14th street. We improvised behind him while he read his poems, which I read ahead of time "It's dark out, Jack" — Patchen's a real artist, you'd dig him, doctor. "I believe in truth" he said, "I believe that every good thought I have, all men shall have. I believe that the perfect shape of everything has been prepared.""

      — Charles Mingus, from Beneath the Underdog [p.330]

http://mingusmingusmingus.com/
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/kpint.htm
http://www.concentric.net/~lndb/patchen/patchclr.htm

1980 -- Umberto Eco completes his novel The Name of the Rose.

1987 -- US: "Fiscal conservative" & "Free-marketeer" Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Reagan produces the nation's first trillion-dollar budget, projecting 1988 outlays of $1,024.3 billion, revenues of $916.6 billion, & a deficit of $107.8 billion.

Oddly, the rich get richer & the poor get poorer. Trickled on, again.



1989 -- Real Duds?: Two French TV newsmen arrested for trying to plant fake bombs on three airlines at JFK airport in security test.


1989 -- China: Riots against African students.


1990 -- US: 50 demand taxes for human needs, not Israeli occupation, Israeli Embassy, Washington DC.


1990 -- Spain: Lola Iturbe (1902-1990) dies. Sindicalista libertaria (CNT), member Mujeres Libres. Pseudonym, Kyra Kyralina (Kiralina).

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Edited the collection, La mujer en la Lucha Social y en la Guerra Civil de España, 220p. (Editores Mexicanos Unidos, 1974).
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/ateneovirtual/index.php?title=Lola_Iturbe
http://elpais.com/diario/1990/01/06/agenda/631580404_850215.html
http://in-formacioncgt.info/ateneo/libros.html
http://www.nodo50.org/despage/Nuestra%20Historia/75Aniversario/Mujeres_Libres/mujereslibres.htm
http://www.ephemanar.net/janvier05.html#iturbe
http://www.ephemanar.net/avril12.html

1999 -- US: Plans Go Awry?: Clinton\Gore go down. Newt Gingrich, still officially House Speaker, becomes President.




2002 -- France: Ruggiero Romano (1923-2002) dies, Paris. Braudel’s disciples include Romano among Italian pioneers. One of the most important exponents of the economic historiography in the 20th Century, he taught at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

I do not locate myself, because I am an individualistic anarchist... & my model of society is with an almost nonexistent state. The State works bad in all the countries, to eliminate it completely would be ideal...

Source: Revista, "Toda es historia," N° 251, mayo de 1988.

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In November 1998, various Mexican institutions & organizations pay homage to Ruggiero Romano:
http://www.elhistoriador.com.ar/entrevistas/r/romano.php

Author: Mecanismo y elementos del sistema económico colonial americano. (Mexico City, 2004)

2006 -- US: Paper Politics: An Exhibition of Politically & Socially Engaged Printmaking. Curated by Josh MacPhee, 5+5 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Show runs through February 19th.
http://www.favianna.com/exhibitions/index_paperbrooklyn.php
http://www.justseeds.org/


2009 -- UN warns of humanitarian crisis in Gaza as Israeli attack continues. Basic foods are no longer available, hospitals lack medical supplies, sewage runs through the streets. Hasan Khalaf, Gaza's assistant deputy health minister, describes the ongoing assault on Gaza as "an Israeli massacre".
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/UN_warns_of_humanitarian_crisis_in_Gaza
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/12/24/noam_chomsky_gaza_one_year_later



2010 -- US: Peace activist George Willoughby dies. Willoughby was a WWII conscientious objector who helped find homes for Japanese-Americans who had been put in camps at the outbreak of the war. An anti-nuke protester in the 1950s & a crew member of the Golden Rule, protesting atomic testing in the Pacific ocean — inspiring the Greenpeace movement.

Married to "Granny for Peace" Lillian Willoughby, also a lifelong anti-war activist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Willoughby



3000 --

When we can't dream any longer we die. — Emma Goldman

4000 --


4500 --

used anarchist books: