Daily Bleed: Teodora Badell, Durruti Column, Gabriella Segata Antolini, Gennaro Rubino, Emma Goldman, Elisee Reclus, Alfred Marpaux, J.G. Ballard, Ferrer, Huelga General, Home Colony, Jay Fox, Pierre Besnard; on this day November 15

"Better stop short than fill to the brim. Oversharpen the blade, & the edge will soon blunt. Amass a store of gold & jade, & no one can protect it. Claim wealth & titles, & disaster will follow. Retire when the work is done. This is the way of heaven." — Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu

NOVEMBER 15

J.G. BALLARD
British distopian novelist of bleak too-late-capitalist futures.

Austria: ST. LEOPOLD'S DAY marks the beginning of new wine season with drinking & festivities.

FESTIVAL OF TOTAL SUBMISSION.
"Given the unique opportunity & the world-upside-down symbolism associated with carnival, it is hardly surprising that it would frequently spill over its ritual banks into violent conflict. & if one were, in fact, planning a rebellion or protest, the legitimate cover of anonymous assembly provided by carnival might suggest itself as a likely venue."

James C Scott, Hidden Transcripts: Domination & the Arts of Resistance

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE INDIAN. Declared by World Council of Indigenous Peoples in 1997.

791 -- Mayan King Chan-muwan dedicates Temple I at Bonampak.

1492 -- Christopher Columbus notes first recorded reference to tobacco. E Rodrigo de Jerez becomes the first recorded European smoker, a "devilish" habit that later gets him imprisoned by the Inquisition. Second-Hand Smokers, Beware!

Recent studies indicate that this reference was in fact code, designating his real motive for sailing into the new world: finding a "hip" tobacconist. The treasure he hoped to find was not gold (for which, if Indians didn't bring him, he had their arms chopped off) or spices, but "alcapulco gold."

[Image by CollageMeister James Koehnline]

1533 -- New Old World: The Spanish conquerors enter the city of Cuzco, capital of the Incas & Machu Picchu. Bringing disease, cockroaches & pigs to the "savages" what needs civilizing.
http://web.archive.org...eduardo.galeano/memoria.del.fuego/index.php?mostrar=15331115
http://travel.peru.com/english/

1598 -- New Old World: Yours is Mine? Juan de Onate declares possession of Hopi land (northern Arizona) in name of Spanish crown. 400 years later, the Hopi have still never signed a treaty with any non-Indian nation.
"The big majority of Americans, who are comparatively well off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery without almost noticing them."
— Gunnar Myrdal

1754 -- US: Trombone first used in America.

1776 -- José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi lives, México City. Editor, pamphleteer, & novelist, & a leading literary figure in the national liberation movement. Takes his pseudonym — "the Mexican Thinker" — from the title of his radical journal, "El pensador mexicano" (1812).

1781 -- The death of Túpac Catari in Bolivia after being betrayed.
http://web.archive.org...eduardo.galeano/memoria.del.fuego/index.php?mostrar=17811115

1805 -- US: Explorers Lewis & Clark reach the mouth of the Columbia River. Accompanying them is a slave, York, who, while technically Clark's valet, distinguished himself as a scout, interpreter, & emissary to the Native Americans encountered.

1806 --

First US college magazine, Yale Literary Cabinet, publishes its first issue.

1825 -- US: African American feminist Sarah Jane Woodson lives, Chillicothe, Ohio.

1859 --

The final installment of Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is published.

1862 -- Gerhardt Hauptmann lives, Ober-Salzbrunn, Silesia. German dramatist, poet, novelist. Gets 1912 Nobel Prize for Literature.

"He did not speak in his own guise, but let life itself talk."
— Thomas Mann
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hauptman.htm

1862 -- Alfred Marpaux lives (1862-1934), Champagnole (the Jura). Federal credit militant, typesetter, trade unionist & coopérativist, a "socialist possibilist." Influenced by the ideas of Proudhon, Bakunin & Benoît Malon, his socialism had the distinct imprint of the libertarian ideas embodied by the anarchist Jura Federation.
http://www.ephemanar.net/novembre15.html

1864 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Sherman burns Atlanta during the Civil War.

1881 -- US: American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded.

1884 -- Though his sentence of 1884 has lapsed, the anarchist Errico Malatesta prefers to live incognito; today the police discover him, dared not molest him, had to leave him alone.

[Details / context]

1887 -- The American newspaper columnist, translator, poet, & radio personality, F.P.A. (Franklin Pierce Adams), lives, Chicago, Illinois. His humorous syndicated column will earn him the reputation of godfather of the contemporary newspaper column.

1887 -- Marianne Moore, poet & Yankee baseball fan, lives, St. Louis.

"Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others."

Her often-quoted advice was that poets should present imaginary gardens with real toads in them.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mmoor.htm
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/96

1887 -- Georgia O'Keefe, painter, lives, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

GEORGIA O'KEEFE, Patron Saint 1998
American free spirit, feminist, cultural pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_O'Keeffe

1895 -- Antoni Slonimski, Polish poet, translator, & newspaper columnist best known for his devotion to pacifism & social justice, lives. Wrote thousands of poems, several plays, novels & translations of William Shakespeare's works.
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/works.html

1901 -- Spain: In Barcelona, the libertarian educator Francisco Ferrer begins publishing Huelga General (General Strike).

La Grève Générale

Appearing thrice-monthly, Huelga General promotes revolutionary syndicalism & popularizes the General Strike as a major weapon in workers' struggles.

Graphic courtesy of Ephéméride Anarchiste

1902 -- Belgium: In Brussels, Gennaro Rubino, an Italian individualist anarchist, attempts to kill King Léopold II.
Gennaro Rubino

Rubino fired three shots, but Léopold was only scratched. Rubino barely escaped with his life thanks to the police(!).
Rubino was previously denounced in the anarchist press as a spy & for many years (wrongly) considered an agent provocateur...

[Details / context]

1909 -- Ward Moorehouse marries Annabelle Strang, in John Dos Passos novel The 42nd Parallel.

1910 -- US: The Agitator first appears today, in Home Colony, Washington, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Haymarket Martyrs (November 11th).
Published by members of the anarchist colony of Home, Jay Fox made the bimonthly tabloid into a lively journal advocating a blend of libertarian ideas & revolutionary industrial unionism....

[Details / context]

1912 -- Nicaragua: US Marines begin fighting in Managua (-April 5, 1917).

1915 -- US: Ravensdale coal mine explosion kills 31 workers, Washington state.

1915 -- France: The semimonthly Pendant la mêlée ("acrate, individualiste et éclectique"), succumbs to the difficulties of trying to publish during the Great Slaughter (WWI). Not to be kept down, it reappears...
[Details / context]

1917 -- Russia: Bolsheviks take Moscow, Russian Revolution ends.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html
http://www.earthstation1.com/

1917 -- Mystery Magazine publishes its first issue.

1918 -- US: Gabriella Segata Antolini, a 19-year-old anarchist arrested & convicted for transporting dynamite in Chicago, is imprisoned in the Jefferson City, Mo., penitentiary; she & fellow prisoner Emma Goldman become good friends.

1919 -- US: In New York City, the main headquarters of the anarcho-syndicalist I.W.W is torn up & destroyed by agents acting under the US Attorney General Palmer, in his continuing persecution of labor militants, anarchists, radicals, etc. The era of the Palmer Raids (the "Red Scare") ruthlessly foisted upon the public, it should better be called the "White Terror,": government agents illegally breaking into trade-union buildings & peoples homes, meeting halls, arresting militants without cause or charges, seizing or trashing files, destroying fixtures & the buildings.
http://www.ephemanar.net/novembre15.html

1920 -- German poet/dramatist Ernst Toller's play "Massen Menschen" premiers, Nurnberg.
“Der Riss der Zeit ging mitten durch sein Herz”

The rip of time went straight through his heart.

—Walter Mehring
Long before the book burnings of 1933, Toller’s works suffered political repression. Toller was also, of course, one of those who played a crucial role during the Spartakist revolt in the years 1918 - 1920, as did B.Traven, Gustav Landauer, etc.

"History is the propaganda of the victors."

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Toller

1922 -- Ecuador: General Strike called by the anarchosyndicalist-inspired union FTRE — reuniting nearly all the workers & craftsmen in Guayaqui — resulting later in a massacre of the workers.
1922 - General strike & massacre

Huelga General y posterior masacre de obreros de la ciudad de Guayaquil, en Ecuador. La huelga fue convocada por la sindical FTRE, de inspiración anarcosindicalista, que reunía a casi todos los trabajadores y artesanos de la ciudad.
Source: Efemérides Ateneo Virtual

1926 -- Italy: During this month Mussolini issues the "laws of exceptions," instituting special "tribunals of state defense," with many anarchists arrested & deported.

1926 -- France: Le 15 et 16 novembre 1926, à Lyon, se tient le congrès constitutif d'un nouvelle organisation syndicale la C.G.T-S.R (Confédération Générale du Travail - Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire). Impulsée par Pierre Besnard, la création de cette nouvelle organisation de sensiblitité libertaire et ouvertement anarcho-syndicaliste était devenue nécessaire après la main mise des communistes staliniens sur la C.G.T.U. La C.G.T.- S.R adhère à son tour à l'A.I.T (anti-autoritaire) créée à Berlin en 1922.

"Ils ont un drapeau noir
en berne sur l'Espoir
Et la mélancolie
pour traîner dans la vie
Des couteaux pour trancher
le pain de l'amitié
Et des armes rouillées
pour ne pas oublier...

— Léo Ferré, extrait de la chanson "Les anarchistes"

http://www.ephemanar.net/novembre15.html

1930 -- Author J. G. Ballard crashes out, in Shanghai, China.
At the forefront of modern British fiction writing for over three decades, Susan Sontag refers to him as "one of the most important, intelligent voices in contemporary fiction."
His first book was The Drowned World, in 1961. His acclaimed 1984 novel Empire of the Sun was based on his prison experience under the Japanese during WWII.

As the owner of Crash's distributor Fine Line Features, Ted Turner attempted to block Crash (the film based on his book) being released in the States at all, & only backed down when the press caught wind of his behind-the-scenes manoeuvres. (For the complete story, check out the Wired News report.)
http://web.archive.org/...culture/0,1284,7369,00.html

"The British are a strange, nervous nation, unable to defend freedom of speech"

Definitive collection of J.G. Ballard links at
http://www.jgballard.com/
http://www.evergreenreview.com/102/contrib/ballard.html
http://www.jgballard.ca/

1934 -- American poet Ted Berrigan (1934-1983) lives.
Daily Bleed Patron Saint 2007-2010
Dada/Beat poet, social rebel, celebrant of dropout culture.

A central figure in the second generation of the New York School of Poets which included Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, Jim Carroll, & Anselm Hollo. Wrote over 20 books including The Sonnets (1964), Bean Spasms (with Ron Padgett & Joe Brainard) (1967), Poems, In Brief (1971), Red Wagon (1976), & A Certain Slant of Sunlight (1988).

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/berrigan/

1936 -- Spain: Today 1,800 militiamen from the best of the Durruti Column enter into combat at University City (Madrid).
Buenaventura Durruti was called to the defense of Madrid, but had refused to leave the Aragon front. Later he was persuaded as his presence would lend moral support to the fighters. The combat & the bombings were terrifying. Madrid was the first civilized city in the world subjected to a fascist attack as a prelude to WWII. Franco initiated the attack he thought would be the final one. At University City combat was hand to hand.

By the 18th only 700 of the 1800 anarchist militiamen remained. On the 19th Durruti was told some militiamen were deserting positions as they had been without eating or sleeping for five days. Durruti went by car to the Clinic Hospital & on the way stopped to persuade some militiamen to return to their positions. As he got back in the car he was mortally wounded by a shot to the chest. He died at dawn on November 20.
On the Durruti Column, see the Anarchist Encyclopedia page, Encyclopedia/DurrutiColumnEarly.htm

For Spanish Revolution posters, see our massive collection,
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/spain/

1936 -- Wolf Biermann lives. German poet/songster.

It’s not that Joan Baez or the Beatles or Bob Dylan have thousands of imitators.

Wolf Biermann in East Berlin, Barbara in Paris, Fred Akerström & Cornelis Vreeswijk in Sweden, Ryoko Moriyama in Japan — it’s all the same universe of discourse, because it’s all the same audience listening to the same spokesmen speaking against the same evil & for the same good...

— Kenneth Rexroth,
Subversive Aspects of Popular Songs

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/wolf-biermann/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhszn6tucjA

1937 -- First congressional session in air-conditioned chambers.

1939 -- Poland: Nazis begin mass murder of Warsaw Jews.

1939 -- US: Social Security Administration approves first unemployment check.

1941 -- US: Broad Side of a Barn? Cow Palace opens in Frisco.

1941 -- Heathcote Williams lives. British poet, actor, squatter (Frestonia) & playwright. He is also an intermittent painter, sculptor, ardent fire-eater & long-time conjuror (The Magic Circle). Williams is perhaps best known for the book-length polemical poem Whale Nation, which The Independent called "the most powerful argument for the [...] worldwide ban on whaling."
"Reason is an emotion for the sexless."

— Heathcote Williams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathcote_Williams

1942 -- Norway: Completion of arrests of entire Jewish population (2,300) in Nazi-occupied Norway.

1951 -- US: Paul Robeson addresses “World Peace Rally,” sponsored by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, in New York.

1956 -- Hungary: Budapest workers council votes to continue the General Strike.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/10ref.htm#23/1956

1957 -- US: Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), the precursor of SANE/FREEZE (now Peace Action), founded.

1963 -- Brazil: Tenth Anarquista gathering (November 15-17th). 100 militants meet to consider the direction of the Brazilian movement.
Source: [Arquivo de História Social]

1966 -- Francois Truffaut movie "Fahrenheit 451" is released. Based on the novel by Ray Bradbury.

1966 -- US: Psychedelic Shop is busted for selling Lenore Kandel's The Love Book, Frisco, California. (Lenore is "Ramona Swartz" in Kerouac's novel Big Sur.)
Ronnie Reagan has just been elected Governor of California on a platform that includes harassment of hippies, & the most famous head shop on Haight St. (& perhaps the first head shop in the world) is raided for selling obscene literature, namely, her book.

http://www.litkicks.com/LenoreKandel
http://www.diggers.org/ron_thelin.htm

1967 -- Beloved Comrade Leader General William C. Westmoreland, Commander of US forces in South Vietnam, declares he has "never been more encouraged in my four years in Vietnam."
Two months hence the massive Tet Offensive is launched by the Communists, & Westmoreland is effectively defeated & forced to skeedaddle.
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/

1969 -- Janis Joplin, accused of vulgar & indecent language in Tampa, Florida.
Janis Joplin is arrested charges of using "vulgar & indecent language" at her concert. According to witnesses, the incident started when a policeman with a bullhorn ordered people in the audience to sit down & Joplin responded,

"Don't fuck with those people! Hey, Mister, what're you so uptight about? Did you buy a five dollar ticket?"

When police backstage instructed Joplin to tell the audience to take their seats she replied, "I'm not telling them shit."

Arrested in her dressing room, she was released on $504 bond. All charges were eventually dropped.

1969 -- US: Over 500,00 people march on Washington in a MOBE-organized protest of the Viet Nam War, & 150,000 attend a march in San Francisco ... while Beloved & Respected Comrade Used Car Salesman President "Tricky" Dick M Nixon watches Purdue-Ohio State football game on TV. Ohio State wins, US loses.
Anti-Vietnam War protesters rally in front of the White House to conclude the March Against Death which began two days ago in darkness & near-freezing temperatures near the gates of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. 1,200 protesters crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge every hour & then walked four miles to the White House. Each marcher carried a candle & a placard that named a soldier killed in Vietnam.

Reaching the White House, they paused to say aloud the name of their soldier, then headed for Capitol Hill, where they put their placards in 40 coffins. All told, 45,000 marched through the two cold, stormy nights. The first marcher was Judy Droz, a 23-year-old mother whose husband died in Vietnam this April.

According to Todd Gitlin the number of marchers may have reached as high as 750,000. Speakers included Senators Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Charles Goodell; African Americans Coretta King, Dick Gregory; Conductor Leonard Bernstein; Singers: Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul, & Mary, John Denver, Mitch Miller; & the touring cast of Hair.

Recitation of US deaths in the Vietnam War takes 36 hours in front of White House, Washington DC.

1969 -- US: Thousands of people participate in a peace march protesting the Vietnam War, San Francisco.

1969 -- The Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, where the Beatles played their first major engagements, announces it will close before the end of the month. Rock & roll bands have become too expensive to book.

1976 -- Canada: Parti Quebecois wins first victory in Quebec elections, gains control of government.

1976 -- US: Plains Baptist Church, home church of Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Jimmy Carter, under pressure to admit African-Americans since Reverend Clennon King had announced his intentions to join the congregation, votes ok.

1978 -- Radical anthropologist & feminist rebel Margaret Mead, 76, dies of cancer.
Studied anthropology with Franz Boaz, who had trained novelist Zora Neale Hurston. Her first field work was in Samoa in 1925, resulting in her influential book Coming of Age in Samoa, which suggested that the US might learn something from Polynesians about handling adolescence. By insisting throughout her long & productive career on comparing the US to other cultures, she broadened both the scope & appeal of the field.

http://www.greatwomen.org/women-of-the-hall/search-the-hall/details/2/108-Mead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead

1984 -- US: Baby Fae, who received a baboon's heart, dies at California medical center.

1984 -- France: Teodora Badell (1893-1984) dies. Spanish anarchist-syndicalist militant: active in the strikes of 1917; involved with Federica Montseny & helps to publish Revista Blanca; refugee in Paris following the Spanish Revolution.
http://www.ephemanar.net/novembre15.html#badell

1985 -- Nice Guys Finish Last?: Great Britain & Republic of Ireland sign agreement giving the Republic consultive role in governing of N. Ireland.

1986 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Bush's diary indicates he knew of illegal Iran-contra plot to deceive Congress.

1987 -- Romania: Brown Baggers? 6,000 antigovernment strikers sack the city hall of Brasov.

1988 --
"The Secret Service is under orders that if Bush is shot, to shoot Quayle."
— Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Senator John Kerry

1990 -- Uruguayan writer Juan Carlos Onetti (Tierra de nadie) wins the Premio Internacional Union Latina.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/onetti.htm

1991 -- Brazil: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Collor signs decree returning original lands to Yanomani Indians. Unfortunately, it means little as gold miners & ranchers continue to steal land & murder the Yanomani with impunity.

1991 -- Jeremy Irons movie "Kafka" is released, US. Americans know who Irons is, but just who is this "Kafka" dude?
http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue23/lowy23.htm

1999 -- Transit of Mercury visible in North America. Except in Seattle where it always rains & people are covered in moss.
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/transit99.html

2000 --
WASHINGTON D.C. - Following an emergency meeting
Wednesday morning, Congress unanimously voted to excise
Florida from the United States of America.

The move was a reaction to the confusion & irregularities in
the state's voting numbers that have totally disrupted the 2000
Presidential election.

"We're all pretty much sick of Florida," said Representative
Barney Frank. "They've been a constant embarrassment for
too long now."

In a speech on the Senate floor, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy commented that the loss of Florida's sizable elderly population will free up billions of dollars in social security funds. "These are valuable funds which can now be redirected toward national defense," said the Senator to roaring applause.

As a result of the Florida screw-up, the House & Senate decreed a new election will take place in early December. This time, ballots in each state will be tabulated by robots, said Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

"Remember," said he, "every vote counts, especially if it's counted by robots."

Dynamiting will begin along the Florida border next Wednesday, after which the state will be completely geographically separated from the United States.

"After that, they're on their own," said Hastert. "I hope they sink."

2001 -- US: Government admits NOT ONE of the 1,200 suspects arrested after Sept. 11 has been linked to the terrorist attacks. 1,200 down, thousands more to be disappeared & facing star-chamber trials (when & if the government gets around to it)...

2002 -- "Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets" movie opens in the US.

2010 -- Iran: Five human rights lawyers arrested, the latest in a series of arrests of Iranian human rights' activists since last year's disputed presidential election.

3000 --

ELISEE RECLUS 1997 Patron Saint
Anarchist, geographer, Parisian communard.

Wrote Nouvelle géographie universelle, which crowned him the father of modern geography.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/ReclusElisee.htm

"Choosing new masters is no solution at all. It is we anarchists, enemies of Christianity, who have to remind a whole society which claims to be Christian of these words of the man whom they have made a God:

"Call no man Master, Master! Let each man remain his own master. Do not go to the offices of bureaucrats, or the noisy chambers of parliaments, in the vain hope for the words of freedom. Listen rather to the voices which come from below, even if they come through the bars of the prison cell."

— Elisée Reclus, Clarens (Switzerland), October 1, 1885.

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SA/en/display/283
http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/98aar.html#reclus

3001 --
"Puritanism: the haunting fear that somebody, somewhere, might be having a good time."

— H.L. Mencken

4000 --