Our Daily Bleed: Concha Liaño, Albert Joseph (aka Libertad), Jean Meckert, aka Jean / John Amila, Mollie Steimer, Philippe Daudet, Max Baginski, Abbie Hoffman; anarchico, anarchiste, anarquista, anarsizm, anarþizme, Anarþist, Anarquismo, Anarchismus, anarchia, anarchisme, anarchizm, anarkisme, libertarians, What Happened on this day, in recovered history November 24
Kings do not touch doors.
They do not know that happiness: to push before them with kindness or rudeness one of these
great familiar panels, to turn around towards it to put it back in place — to hold it in one's arms.
... The happiness of grabbing by the porcelain knot of its belly one of these huge single
obstacles; this quick grappling by which, for a moment, progress is hindered, as the eye opens
& the entire body fits into its new environment.
With a friendly hand he holds it a while longer before pushing it back decidedly thus shutting
himself in — of which, he, by the click of the powerful & well-oiled spring, is pleasantly assured.
— Francis Ponge, "the pleasures of the door"
NOVEMBER 24
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC Decadent French society painter, illustrator, anarchiste
USE EVEN IF SEAL IS BROKEN DAY.
INTERNATIONAL PROTEST AGAINST WAR TOYS DAY.
FESTIVAL OF SILENCE.
1434 -- England: Cold Day In Hell? Thames River freezes.
BARUCH SPINOZA SAINT 1997
Excommunicated Jewish philosopher of the One.
1656 -- New Old World: Maidstone (East Hampton, Long Island, now New York) restricts the natives, ruling against renting them land, or allowing wigwams to be set up in town without permission. They are not allowed to travel through town on the Sabbath. Rent control, bass-ackward pre-capitalist days, apparently.
1759 -- Tobias Smollett is convicted of having libeled an admiral in "The Critical Review." Claims, "He was less than admirable."
1775 -- New Old World: The Continental Congress of America issues an order to bar negroes from the army.
1793 -- France: The French revolutionary calendar first becomes operative.
Source: [Calendar Riots]
1805 -- US: To make the crucial decision of where to spend the winter, Lewis & Clark put the matter to a vote. Significantly, in addition to the
others, Clark's slave, York, was allowed to vote — nearly 60 years before slaves were emancipated & enfranchised. Sacagawea, the Indian woman, voted too — more than a century before either women or Indians were granted the full rights of citizenship. The majority decided to cross to the south side of the Columbia, near modern-day Astoria, Oregon, to build winter quarters.
1807 -- Thayendanegea, a.k.a. Joseph Brant, dies. Brant led Mohawk Indians who fought against the Americans in the Revolutionary War. He was buried at a church near present-day Brantford, Ontario, but in 1879 his body was stolen by a doctor & his medical students.
1826 -- Carlo Collodi lives. Italian author/journalist, best known as the creator of Pinoccio, the childlike puppet whose nose grew when it lied. Politics as usual.
1859 -- Evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species is published.
"& when I am back in the jungle, it is with relief that I sink back into my natural timelessness.
I become one with the beasts & the trees, & I can laze away weeks or months with no thoughts beyond now."
— Greystoke, from Extracts from the Memoirs of Lord Greystoke, edited by Philip Jose Farmer
1860 -- US: The Arkansian of Fayetteville, Arkansas reports: At Council Bluffs, Iowa, the alarming discovery has just been made that Frank Bates, a young, dashing, popular lady-fascinating dry-goods clerk, is — a girl.
1864 -- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lives. French artist, printmaker, draftsman, & illustrator who recorded the world of sexy night-club dancers, lounging whores, & drunken bohemian merriment, & the anarchist milieu (Oscar Wilde, Felix Fénéon, Charles Maurin, Aristide Bruant, etc.) in which he worked & played.
See Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon, & the Art & Anarchy of the Fin De Siecle by David Sweetman.
1871 -- US: National Rifle Association (NRA) & Charleton Heston are incorporated.
1874 -- Birth of Frederick Libby, founder of National Council for the Prevention of War.
1875 -- US: Labor honcho Samuel Gompers is a charter member & first president of Cigar Makers International Union (CMIU) Local 144. http://www.history.umd.edu/Gompers/
1875 -- Albert Joseph (aka Libertad) lives. Founder of the individualist Parisian magazine L’Anarchie. See 12 November 1908.
1888 -- Dale Carnegie is positive he lives. Oh, sure....
1898 --
International Anti-Anarchist Conference, prompted by the assassination of the Empress of Austria, is convened by Italian government officials in Rome; attended by 54 delegates representing 21 countries, including police chiefs from several European countries & major cities. Conference marks the development of strategic international surveillance of & exchange of information about anarchist activities.
1908 -- Harry Kemelman lives. Mystery writer, famous for his "Rabbi" books about wise rabbi David Small, who solves murder cases, while revealing at the same time ethical problems & ethnic relations in America. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kemelman.htm
1909 -- US: 20,000 NYC women's garment workers strike for a union contract.
1910 -- Jean Meckert, aka Jean Jean Amila(or John) Amila, (1910-1995) lives. Libertarian novelist & antimilitarist.
ean Meckert's first novel Les coups (1941) is noticed by André Gide & Raymond Queneau.
In 1950, at the request of Marcel Duhamel, Meckert began writing detective novels under the name John Amila, a score of which appear in the 'Noir Series.' Notable are La lune d'Omaha; Noces de soufre; Pitié pour les rats (1964), Le boucher des Hurlus (1982).
His 1971 novel La vierge et le taureau denounced military misdeeds in the South Pacific (atomic & bacteriological experiments). Meckert's books are all stamped with the antimilitarist & anarchist spirit.
"I do not know if I am an anarchist, but I know the ideas. My father was an anarchist..."
Concha entered the movement through an excursion group called "Sun & Life," whose activities alternated between hiking & reading. She was in Plaza de la Generalidad on July 19, 1936, waiting for Companys to distribute arms to the people.
In retrospect, she asked herself if all the struggles, the sacrifices, the deaths & the exile were all worth it & answers affirmatively:
"We taught the world a lesson. Insofar as we were able, we set an example of the possibility of living without government, because there was no government, yet the collectives were working & everything was functioning. Everything was operating by mutual agreement."
See Living Utopia (Vivir la utopia), a film by Juan Gamero (Spain, 1997; Spanish with English subtitles).
1919 -- US: The Oscar Mayer Company reopens a meat-packing plant on Madison's east side.
The company searched for skilled workers in a recruiting frenzy that included a sweep of Milwaukee's Polish saloons during the Cudahy packing-plant strike.
The Oscar Mayer plant had been operated by the Farmers' Cooperative Packing Company, which formed under a strongly worded state law encouraging cooperatives. Prior to the cooperative's opening two years ago, in 1917, Madison-area farmers had no choice but to sell their pigs & cattle to the Chicago beer trusts. Response to the cooperative was enthusiastic — 5,000 area farmers bought nearly 600,000 dollars of stock in the new enterprise. The nation had only two other farm-owned cooperative packing plants, both in Wisconsin. But faced with mounting wages & operating losses, & no real prospect of new capital, the cooperative was forced to sell the plant to the Chicago firm, Oscar F. Mayer & Brother.
1921 -- US: Mollie Steimer, after doing 18 months of a 15-year sentence for handing out leaflets, & three other radicals (Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lipman, & Hyman Lachowsky) were shipped off to Soviet Russia. Victims of the Red Scare in America, they were soon victims of the Red Terror in Russia ("Proletarian Democracy").
On August 23, 1918, Mollie & others in her group were arrested for distributing leaflets "the land of the free" opposing the landing of American troops in Soviet Russia.
The Abrams case, as it became known, is now a landmark in the repression of civil liberties in the US. It is cited in all standard histories as one of the most flagrant violations of constitutional rights during the Red Scare hysteria (pre-2002).
In Moscow, Mollie met Senya Fleshin, who became her lifelong companion. Both Mollie & Senya were imprisoned in 1922 for aiding "criminal elements" & were deported in 1923.
1922 -- Italy: La Camera grants to Mussolini a majority of full powers in economic & political matter until 31 December of 1923. It is an act of suicide by the Parliament.
Source: [Crimini e Misfatti]
1922 -- Ireland: British author Erskine Childers executed. Political activist & IRA member, remembered for his espionage novel The Riddle of the Sands. Executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Civil War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Erskine_Childers
1923 -- Philippe Daudet, French anarchiste, son of Léon Daudet (leader of the fascist "Ligue de l'Action Française"), dies under mysterious circumstances (assassinated).
Saint-Pol-Roux, Raymond Roussel, Philippe Daudet, Germaine Berton, Saint-John Perse, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio di Chirico, Pierre Reverdy, Jacques Vachè, Leon-Paul Fargue, Sigmund Freud, your portraits hang on dream's bedroom walls, you are the presidents of the Republic of Dream.
1925 -- Mystery writer, rightwing bozo, yachtsman, continued apologist for "Tail Gunner" Joe McCarthy & his 50s witch hunt, William F. Buckley, Jr., lives, New York City.
1926 -- American poet Paul Blackburn lives.
1927 -- US: On Thanksgiving Day, California troops battle 1,200 inmates when Folsom prisoners revolt. One prisoner is shot in the ensuing uprising & five others are later hanged.
1938 -- Playing chicken? National Semi-Pro Basketball Congress authorizes yellow basketball.
1945 -- Nurradin Farah lives. Prominent Somali novelist who explores questions of cultural identity in a post-independence world Warned the Somali government planned to arrest him, Farah began a 22-year self-imposed exile. A perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuruddin_Farah
1947 -- John Steinbeck's novel The Pearl is published.
1947 -- US: B Movie?: House of Representatives cites "Hollywood Ten" for contempt of Congress. Chairman J. Parnell is later convicted in 1949 for "padding" his payrolls & pocketing the money. Politics as usual.
The Hollywood Ten, a group who refused to testify before the 1947 U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities about alleged communist involvement. They are blacklisted, some sent to prison.
What is it . . . which delivers the leaders of a
great nation into such an excess of hysteria that
they fear & actually assert their power to
prohibit the utterance of any word which may be
spoken in opposition to their purposes?
1953 -- Max Baginski dies, NY's Bellevue Hospital. A large-scale character gifted with a rare spirit & mental acuity. An editor of the Chicago Worker newspaper. He helped publish the 1906-07 issues of the magazine Freedom & provided editorials for Emma Goldman's Mother Earth magazine. Rudolf Rocker calls him
"One of the most enlightened & perspicacious spirits of the German [anarchist] movement."
1961 -- United Nations adopts bans on nuclear arms over US protests. US loves weapons of mass destruction [American made].
1961 -- India: Booker Prize-winner & social critic Arundhati Roy lives, Shillong, Meghalaya. Novelist (The God of Small Things), essayist & activist.
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — & our ability to tell our own stories."
1962 -- James J. Kilroy, tank inspector (Kilroy was here!), dies at 60.
1963 -- US: Millions of TV watchers see Jack Ruby, the operator of a local striptease club, stick a revolver into Lee Harvey Oswald's side, & shoot him dead (All In the Family?) First live TV killing. When the assassin is assassinated, it is de facto a conspiracy.
1963 -- US: LBJ signs national security memorandum stating US goal in Vietnam is helping the Saigon government to a military "victory." This last week of November JFK plans withdrawal/withdraws 1000 of 17,000 advisers in Vietnam, quietly opens a dialogue with Castro's Cuba, & pursues detente with the USSR (Hayden).
1965 -- Merce Cunningham/John Cage modern dance "How to Pass, Kick, Fall & Run" premiers, Chicago. http://www.mercecunningham.org/
1966 -- US: 400 die of respiratory failure & heart attack in killer New York City smog.
1966 -- Ramón Amaya Amador, Honduras's most famous author, dies in a plane crash, in Czechoslovakia, at the age of 50. Amaya was also a journalist & was forced to flee to Guatemala in 1944 to avoid political persecution, & from there to Argentina when the US/CIA/corporate America overthrew the democratically elected Arbenz government in 1954. In 1977 his remains were returned to Tegucigalpa, but it was not until 1991 that his books were published in Honduras. Founder of the weekly Alerta, worked for El Popular Progresista & other papers. Wrote Biografía de un machete, Prision verde, Memorias de un canalla, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Amaya_Amador
1966 -- France: Strasbourg Student Union (AFGES) press conference is held.
Today the Strasbourg county court sequesters the offices & management of the Strasbourg students' association (AFGES), relating to the outrage & scandal surrounding the brochure On the Poverty of Student Life, edited by members of the Situationist International (principally by Mustapha Khayati) & the students of Strasbourg which appeared on the 22nd.
(Publicly announced in late October as 'the most scandalous brochure of the century,' in Le retour de la colonne Durruti (Return of the Durruti Column), a détourned comic by André Bertrand, plastered on the walls of Strasbourg.)
By mid-1968, levy had published over 55 books & nearly 30 issues of magazines. In October of that year, he was invited to spend a month as poet-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He then returned to Cleveland, in early November. His behavior had become increasingly disturbing: He sat in his apartment, holding a rifle, & asked
"How symbolic would it be if I blew my brains out?"
He burned manuscripts of all his poetry, 300 copies of Tibetan Stroboscope (a collection of concrete poetry), & several original collages, gave away most of his belongings, quarreled with his wife & threw her out, visited friends he hadn't seen in years "to shake hands one last time", & told people he was "leaving Cleveland. I'm leaving the world."
Finally, this evening, at about 11:30pm, levy sat alone in his apartment, put a .22 caliber rifle between his eyes, & pulled the trigger. He was 26.
1971 -- US: Crime Pays: USA: D.B. Cooper jumped from jet in Washington State with $200,000 ransom. Never found. (Owes way over $300,000 in taxes now, but can't be prosecuted).
A passenger listed as "D.B. Cooper" hijacks a plane to Seattle, collects ransom & then parachutes out of the plane somewhere over Southwestern Washington, never to be seen again & becoming an instant folk hero.
After D. B. Cooper hijacked the commercial jet
& parachuted 30,000 feet into the Cascades
where he & his newly acquired money disappeared
we can only assume he lived
because his death would kill the mystery
Our only certainty: D. B. Cooper is not Sasquatch.
— Alexie Sherman, excerpt, "The Sasquatch Poems," The Summer of Black Widows
[Editor notes: Actually he had the pilot stay at 10,000 ft, since he'd left the back door open & nobody can breathe at 30k]
1972 -- US: Circuit Court rules that a Bureau of Indian Affairs 99-year lease of Tesuque Pueblo land to a housing developer outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, violates federal law.
1979 -- US: Federal government admits troops in Vietnam were exposed to the toxic Agent Orange.
1983 -- US: Cruisin' for a Bruisin'? "Plowshares 7" activists damage cruise missile, Griffiths Air Force Base, near Syracuse, New York.
1986 -- US: Fifteen activists, including renowned anti-war protester Abbie Hoffman, are arrested for occupying a University of Massachusetts building, in Amherst, as part of a protest against CIA recruitment on campus. Following a trial detailing CIA crimes, all were acquitted of charges.
1989 -- Czechoslovakia: Communist Party resigns, admitting, "the party's over." Duh.
1990 -- US: Six Marine reservists refuse to report for Persian Gulf duty.
1992 -- Philippines: After the Philippine Senate refusal to renew contracts for US military bases, American armed forces formally withdraw.
1993 -- End of world, according to Ukrainian sect White Brotherhood.
1996 -- Mashonaland defeat Matabeleland to win the Logan Cricket Cup.
1998 -- US: A federal judge rules a Virginia library constitutionally can not block Internet pornography from library computers. Library card renewals shoot up sharply?
2005 -- England: Further calls for Prime Minister Tony Blair to publish a full account of his 2004 discussions with US Prez Bush (who threatened to take "military action" against the Arabic TV station) on the bombing of Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha. Al Jazeera staff stages a 15 minute symbolic walk-out from all their offices around the world in protest. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/24/pressandpublishing.usnews
2010 -- US: Former House of Representatives Majority Leader & former Dancing with the Stars contestant Tom DeLay is convicted of money laundering & conspiracy in relation to Republican fundraising for the 2002 Texass state elections.
2011 -- US: A woman shoots pepper spray to keep shoppers at bay from merchandise she wants during a Black Friday sale: 20 people suffer minor injuries at the crowded Los Angeles Wal-Mart. 10 of the injuries are attributed to "rapid crowd movement."
The store remains open, thankfully, & those not affected by the spray continue shopping.
3500 --
We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war, & our great depression is our lives.
We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires & movie gods & rock stars.
But we won't.
We're slowly learning that fact. & we're very, very pissed off."
— Fight Club
3501 --
"Anarchist Day book, anarchist almanac, anarchist daybook, anarchist chronology"
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Albert Joseph (aka Libertad) lives. Founder of the individualist Parisian magazine L’Anarchie. See 12 November 1908.
US: 20,000 NYC women's garment workers strike for a union contract. 
ean Meckert's first novel Les coups (1941) is noticed by André Gide & Raymond Queneau.
[Details / context]
Nurradin Farah lives. Prominent Somali novelist who explores questions of cultural identity in a post-independence world Warned the Somali government planned to arrest him, Farah began a 22-year self-imposed exile. A perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. 
Finally, this evening, at about 11:30pm, levy sat alone in his apartment, put a .22 caliber rifle between his eyes, & pulled the trigger. He was 26.
