Cornelius Castoriadis, Mollie Steimer, Senya Fléchine, François Ravachol, Clément Duval, Maurice Laisant, Emma Goldman, Mary Shelley, Kronstadt, André Lorulot, , What Happened on this day, in recovered history March 11

What fearful power, what awesome divinity is repetition! It is the pull of the void that drags us deeper down the ever widening gullet of a whirlpool.

— Robert Musil

MARCH 11

CORNELIUS CASTORIADIS
Radical political theorist of socialism & barbarity.

Hindu: FEAST OF GUARI, celebrated by married women with widows taking no part.

Elsewhere in India, a DAY FOR THE WORSHIP OF TOOLS.

DEBUNKING DAY

537 -- Goths lay siege to Rome.

1302 -- Romeo marries Juliet. About time.

1544 -- Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) lives. Greatest Italian poet of the late Renaissance, best remembered for his masterpiece Jerusalem Delivered (1575).
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ttasso.htm

1726 -- Mme d'Épinay lives, Valenciennes. Friend of Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire. Best known for Conversations of Emily & three volume Memoirs & Correspondence.

1744 -- England: Sotheby's, the London auctioneers, has it's roots in this day, as Samuel Baker begins a 10-night sale of "several Hundred scarce & valuable Books." His nephew, a Sotheby, takes over the business when they close the book on Baker.

1811 -- England: Luddites attack machines designed to replace them in the weaving of wool. As part of their strike, Luddites riot, protesting capitalism by smashing machines that dehumanise them — 63 frames broken up at Arnold near Nottingham.
Source: [Luddite Chronology]

1812 -- England: Luddites suffer first defeat at Rawkolds Mill, Great Britain.
Source: [Luddite Chronology]

1818 -- Mary Shelley publishes her Frankenstein novel.

The story of Frankenstein started the summer of 1816 when she joined with Percy Shelley & Claire Clairmont near Geneva Lord Byron. She took a challenge set by Byron & Shelley to write the most frightening ghost story. The idea came to her in a dream.

The first edition of the book had an unsigned preface by Percy Shelley. Many thought it was his novel, not believing a 19-year-old woman could write such horror. Published in 1818, it became a huge success.

http://www.mary-shelley-frankenstein.com/
Nancy Joyce Peters on Backyard Bombs, http://books.google.com/books ...Horror Films on TV

Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks movie poster

1833 -- Nicaragua: US troops "intervene." Protecting "US interests" rather than Nicaragua's we'd suppose.

1835 -- William Makepeace Thackeray, after reading Charlotte Brontë's Villette, is moved to comment: "The poor little woman of genius!...I can read a great deal of her life as I fancy in her book, & see that rather than have fame...she wants some Tomkins or other to...be in love with."

1845 -- New Zealand: Maori uprising against British rule. Today Ngapuhi attack & take Kororareka (now Russell) township, Bay of Islands. Approx 50 deaths altogether. British settlers flee to Auckland. The Maoris realized that the white settlers were increasing at a fast rate, & several violent Maori uprisings occurred between 1845 & 1848, & between 1860 & 1872. These uprisings are known as the New Zealand Wars.
[Source: Working Class Encyclopedia]

1847 -- US: Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman dies. Known as Johnny Appleseed for his large number of fruit tree plantings. He is regarded as the "patron saint" of orchardists in the US, & this is celebrated as his day.

1850 -- Clément Duval lives (1850-1935). anarchiste illegalist, member of "La panthère des Batignolles," sentenced to death by a French court for a burglary (in which a policeman was wounded trying to apprehend him).
Duval spent 14 years in prison in French Guyana Guyane; Guiana where he attempted over 20 escapes. Finally, in 1901, he made good his escape & eventually slipped into New York City, where he lived until age 85, supported & surrounded by Italian & French anarchist comrades.

"Vous m'inculpez de vol, comme si un travailleur qui ne possède rien peut être un voleur. Non, le vol n'existe que dans l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme, en un mot par ceux qui vivent aux dépens de la classe productrice."

1857 -- Spain: Spanish war poet Manuel José Quintana, dies in Madrid. Wrote classical odes marked by patriotism & liberalism, including the two-volume Vidas de españoles célebres ("Lives of Famous Spaniards").

1858 -- India: During the Great Indian Indian Mutiny (also known as the Sepoy Rebellion, sepoys being the native soldiers), the battle of Lucknow rages, Mar. 9-16. The Brits win, & in June, victory at Gwalior effectively ends the Mutiny. Harsh reprisals against mutineers follow. Sir Harry Flashman, of course, was there; disguised as an Indian cavalryman he was caught up on the wrong side of the Indian Mutiny!
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/KS3_2/mut.htm
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/freedom/2401.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/12/george.macdonald.fraser?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x6e6RED8Qs

1876 -- Dutch council communist theorist David Wijnkoop lives, Amsterdam.

1888 -- US: "Blizzard of `88," ushered in by an official New York Weather Bureau forecast of "clearing & colder preceded by light snow," killed 200 in New York state & nearly 600 in surrounding states.
... show details

21 inches of snow dumped on NY, 70 mph gusts piled up 20 foot drifts, marooning New Yorkers in elevated trains, carriages & office buildings. The storm stalled for a day & a half. In Connecticut & central Massachusetts, 40-50 inches of snow fell. Winds piled up 40 to 50 foot drifts. Houses & trains were buried. From Chesapeake Bay to Nantucket, 200 ships were sunk or severely damaged.

"I started out to school & had with me a clothes-line about 25 feet long, with the end tied to our doorbell in the event I could not cross the huge snow drifts to gain the center of the road on Tremont Ave."

Britannia ruled brutally. Arthur "Bomber" Harris (who was to lead the bomber offensive against Germany in World War II) did not try to hide the fact that he had aimed at civilian targets. Harris admitted in 1924 that he had taught Iraqis "that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out & a third of its inhabitants killed or wounded."

Winston Churchill, as British colonial secretary, agreed that aerial explosives were indeed a good idea. But wouldn't aerial gassing be even better? As he put it, "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes."

Others were equally blood-thirsty. TE Lawrence — Lawrence of Arabia — wrote to the London Observer:

"It is odd that we do not use poison gas on these occasions."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/batiste5.html

Charged with inciting to riot, Mollie was held for eight days in the notorious Tombs prison before being released on $1000 bail, only to be arrested again & taken to Ellis Island for deportation. Locked up for 20 hours a day in the Land of Freedom, denied exercise & fresh air & the right to mingle with other political prisoners, she went on a hunger strike until authorities met her demands.

"The entire machinery of the United States government was being employed to crush this slip of a girl weighing no less than eighty pounds," Emma Goldman complained.

Among Emma's closest comrades were Mollie Steimer & Senya Fléchine, who also left Soviet Russia after conditions there became intolerable for anarchists.

On Mollie Steimer, see Marsh, Anarchist Women, Avrich, Anarchist Portraits; Polenberg, Fighting Faiths; & the pamphlet, Sentenced to Twenty Years Prison (New York: Political Prisoners Defense & Relief Committee, 1919). See also the memorial volume edited by Abe Bluestein, Fighters for Anarchism: Mollie Steimer & Senya Fleshin ([New York]: Libertarian Publications Group, 1983).

http://www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/sekhmet/8/sp001228.txt
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsteimer.htm
http://www.iisg.nl/archives/en/files/f/ARCH00414full.php

The protest culminates as a dozen picketers march into the presidential mansion & begin a sit-in. After six hours, police arrest the demonstrators.
Today's sit-in is one of several massive protests across the country against police & mob actions in Selma, Alabama. Just this year in the city, more than a thousand protesters have gone to jail, state cops have beaten to death an African American youth, white hoodlums have killed a Boston minister, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) has murdered a Detroit housewife, & state trooper attacks have sent over 50 peaceful marchers to the hospital.

In the wake of this shooting, students carrying red banners & portraits of Rosa Luxemburg & Karl Liebknecht, the murdered leaders of the German communist uprising of 1919, clashed with police as they assaulted West Berlin's City Hall & the fashionable Kurfurstendamm. Similar events shook a dozen other West German cities.

http://www.hdg.de/lemo/html/biografien/DutschkeRudi/

"That women & children were casualties was unfortunate but unavoidable, & most must have been [killed] from Indian bullets...The Indians at Wounded Knee brought their own destruction as surely as any people ever did. Their attack on the troops was as treacherous as any in the history of Indian warfare, & that they were under a strange religious hallucination is only an explanation not an excuse."

— excerpts from an official investigation of Wounded Knee initiated at the behest of Congress, written by General E. D. Scott

"Gorbachev's rise to power & the policies he implemented that led to the end of Russian Communism & the breakup of the Soviet Union must have been a lie, a fantastic Russian fairy tale the West all too recklessly wanted to believe...

Furthermore, by breaking-up the Soviet Union, dismantling the Soviet military & pursuing nuclear disarmament & world peace, Moscow has instilled a false sense of security in the West that is opening the way for Russia to successfully launch a surprise third world war against the West. All in all, through Mikhail Gorbachev's lies, the way is opened for a global war of mass destruction after which Russia can enslave the world... Of course, the leader of the New World Order that will be established after the radioactive dust settles will be the person who deceptively brought about the global chaos & insanity in the first place: Mikhail Gorbachev."

The country was shattered by the American government & a team of right-wing economists from the University of Chicago (Nobelist Milton J Friedman & Co.), who turned it into an experimental hothouse. Surprisingly, the poor got poorer & the incomes of the rich skyrocketed.

http://timelines.ws/days/03_11.HTML
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pinochet.html
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-chichile.htm
http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/SouthAmerica.html
No Middle Ground #2

WASHINGTON (CNN) --The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," in a culinary rebuke of France stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the US position on Iraq.

Ditto for "french toast," which will be known as "freedom toast."

The name changes were spearheaded by two Republican lawmakers who were bored stiff trying to find something worthy to do.

The jingoistic practice of changing the language to ride with current political tides was most prevalent in World War I, when sauerkraut temporarily became liberty cabbage or pickled vegetables, hamburger was referred to as Salisbury steak, Germania Life Insurance became Guardian Life & dachshunds were called liberty pups. (Frankfurters had earlier become known as hot dogs. About the only common phrase Germany left largely intact was German measles.) The English language is resilient...eventually members of the House will go back to gorging themselves on French fries.

One columnist has a better idea than removing French from the American lexicon:

If chauvinistic warmongers want to start renaming stuff, it should be Iraqi stuff. There's probably not much point in going after Iraqi food such as masgoof (barbecued fish) & pacha (sort of an Iraqi haggis) because Americans don't eat them. A better idea would be to tear out every page in the Bible that features an Iraqi place name, such as Babylon, Babel, the Garden of Eden, Nineveh, & Ur. The Christian right will object, but we all have to make sacrifices during wartime.

3000 --

An intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, & it is only the fool who becomes anything.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky