Ed Sanders, Kronstadt FC, Left Bank Books, Toma Sik, Emma Goldman, Thodor Mitev, Edward Abramowski, Clara Meijer-Wichmann, Nicholas Lazarevitch, Georges Gillet, Jeanne Morand, on this day in history, August 17

Piano buttons, stitched on morning lights.
Jazz wakes with the day,
As I awaken with jazz, love lit the night.
Eyes appear & disappear,
To lead me once more, to a green moon.
Streets paved with opal sadness,
Lead me counterclockwise, to pockets of
joy,
& jazz.
— Bob Kaufman, Morning Joy http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hreh0001/kaufman.html

AUGUST 17
MARCUS GARVEY
Jamaican-American "Back to Africa" revolutionary.

China: FEAST OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS. Wide variety of offerings for those who died orphans, paupers or beggars & those who died far from home. Those lonesome & desolate souls may return to inhabit leaves & grasses, & spread plagues. If offerings are made, they may stay away.

1590 -- New Old World: John White returns to Roanoke colony but finds no trace of settlers (only an empty fort & the word "Croatan").
Source: [Robert Braunwart]
[Hereafter attributed with symbol: ]

1666 -- First recorded glass-fronted bookcase is delivered to Samuel Pepys.

1676 -- Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen, German novelist, dies.

1807 -- US: Proud Mary?: Robert Fulton leaves New York City, beginning the first practical steamboat trip. He reaches Albany, 150 miles distant, in 32 hours.

1835 -- US: First American wrench patent is granted, to Solyman Merrick of Springfield, Mass.
http://www.pub-explorer.com/realale/dalesidebrewery.htm

1843 -- Hawaii: In Honolulu, Herman Melville signs aboard the frigate United States & begins the journey that is the basis for White Jacket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville

1850 -- José Francisco de San Martin, South American revolutionary hero, dies. Argentinean patriot, marshal, dictator, mason. Born February 25, 1778 in Yapeyu, Argentina, he fought in revolutions to liberate Argentina, Chile & Perú from Spain, 1812-22.

1850 -- Melville article "Hawthorne & His Mosses" appears, "Literary World."

1853 -- El Salvador & Guatemala sign a peace treaty ending the 1851 war.

1861 -- Poland: Demonstrators demand reunification; Warsaw is under siege.

1861 -- Australia: Coal miners in NSW refuse to accept a 20% wage cut & walk out (workers are locked out until Oct. 14).

1867 -- Italy: Romeo Frezzi (1867-1897) lives. Died in a prison cell, believed murdered by his police guards, May 2, 1897.
http://www.ephemanar.net/aout17.html

1868 -- Poland: Edward Abramowski lives (1868-1918) Philosopher, psychologist, sociologist.
Influenced by Tolstoy, Abramowski called himself a "state-rejecting socialist." His most important work developed his concept of a "stateless Socialism" & his thought tended increasingly towards an anarcho-syndicalism. He is considered the founder of the Polish co-operative movement, promoting economic associations & initiatives. In 1916 he was given a chair in Experimental Psychology at the University of Warsaw.

[Details / context]

1870 -- US: Hazard Stevens & Philemon Van Trump make the first recorded attempt to climb Mt. Rainier.
http://www.healthandsafetyreport.com/Images/all-hazard.jpg

1875 -- Germany: Kurt Hiller lives, cofounder of Revolutionary Pacifists.

1875 -- France: Georges Gillet lives (1875-1951), Hardivillers dans l'Oise. Militant syndicaliste et propagandiste anarchiste, antimilitariste.
http://www.ephemanar.net/aout17.html

1877 -- Phobos, Martian moon, discovered.

1880 -- England: Coal-mine explosion in Sunderland kills 161 workers.

1883 -- France: Jeanne Morand (also called Jane) lives (1883-1969). Anarchiste & militant antiwar activist imprisoned for her antiwar activities during WWI. She collaborated on numerous libertarian papers for many years. Companion of Jacques Long (Jacklon).
[Details / context]

1885 -- Germany: Clara Meijer-Wichmann lives (1885-1922), German/Dutch anarchist, anti-war activist, feminist (Wife & Society). «Commission Internationale Antimilitariste» (IAK) avec les néerlandais Arthur Müller-Lehning & Albert De Jong.
http://www.iisg.nl/bwsa/bios/wichmann.html
http://web.archive.org/...bewoners.net/nieuws/views.asp?view=full&bericht;_id=3453
http://libcom.org/history/de-jong-albert-1891-1970

1887 -- Marcus Garvey lives, Jamaica.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey

1891 -- Electric self-starter for automobile patented, by a real self-starter.

1892 -- Mae West lives, Brooklyn, New York.
Daily Bleed Patron Saint December 15, 2003-4

"Come up & see me sometime" "

Liberator of gay & straight sex in American popular culture.

"I feel like a million tonight...

But one at a time."

http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/west/

1894 -- US: Emma Goldman released from prison after serving 10 months. She sells a report about her prison experience for $150 to the "New York World," which publishes it tomorrow.

1895 -- Belgium: Nicholas Lazarevitch lives (1895-1975), near Liege. Anti-militarist, anarcho-syndicalist, "Platformist" & husband of Ida Mett.
For more on Lazarevitch, see the Anarchist Encyclopedia page. alternate spelling, Nicolas Lazarevich
For an excellent collection of background articles, see
Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution — How the revolution degenerated

1907 -- US: H.O. Blanchard begins produce sales at the site of the Pike Place Market, Seattle (home of Left Bank Books beginning in 1973).

1910 -- US: When a New York garment factory opens in defiance of a strike, women strikers break through police lines & demolish the factory!
They throw sewing machines out the window, smash tables & chairs. Garment workers these days still toil up to 15 hours a day for as little as 50 cents.

The industry-wide strike started in June when the women workers of one of the most notorious New York sweatshops walked out. Only a few weeks after the walkout, 60,000 are on strike up & down the east coast.

As the strike has spread, so has violence against it. Pickets have been assaulted & beaten — one woman has been disabled for life.

In September, the strike leads to an agreement that finally improves working conditions & wages.

1913 -- US: Maynard Shipley debates with the renowned anarchist Emma Goldman, in Everett, Wa. (Advertisement from Commonwealth, Aug. 14, 1913.)
http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/laborpress/newcommonwealth.htm

1917 -- Wilfred Owen & Siegfried Sassoon, both convalescing from battle fatigue at the Craiglockhart War Hospital, meet & form a brief but intense friendship.

What shall I pay for you, lily-lad ?
— Not all the gold King Solomon had.
How can I buy you, London flower ?
— Buy me for ever, not just for an hour.
When shall I pay you, Violet Eyes ?
— With laughter first, & after with sighs.
But you will fade, my delicate bud ?
— No, there is too much sap in my blood.
Will you not shrink in my shut room ?
— No, there I'll break into fullest bloom.
— Wilfred Owen, excerpt WHO IS THE GOD OF CANONGATE?
http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/listyank.html

1917 -- US: John Reed & Louise Bryant sail for Russia to report on the political upheaval for Max Eastman's The Masses.
All my weak endeavor
Lay I at her feet
Like a moth from oversea
Let me longing lightly rest
On her flower petal breast
Till the red dawn set me free
To be with my sweet
Ever & forever...

— John Reed, excerpt A Letter to Louise

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/johnreed.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTmasses.htm

1918 -- US: War Trials in Chicago. IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) sees 95 Wobblies [ideological suspects] go to prison for up to 20 years.
http://www.iww.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World

1922 -- US: Not So Hip?: Government cracks down on hip flasks.

1923 -- US: Birth in Ohio of Juanita Nelson, Massachusetts farmer & conscientious objector who has refused income tax payments for over 50 years.

1924 -- Author D.H. Lawrence views a Hopi snake dance.

1925 -- Novelist John Hawkes, lives, Stamford, Connecticut. Wrote The Blood Oranges.

1930 -- Ted Hughes lives, Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire. Britain's poet laureate, married to American poet Sylvia Plath (who committed suicide in 1963).

1931 -- US: Governor Ross Sterling orders the national guard into the East Texas oil fields, & declares martial law in order to prevent continued reckless company waste — & to drive the price of oil up up up.
https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/governors/personality/sterling-oil-4.html
http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Texas/Sharedpast/1930s.html

1932 -- V. S. Naipaul lives, Trinidad. A House for Mr. Biswas brings critical recognition.

1939 -- Ed Sanders lives, Kansas City, Missouri. Bookstore owner, songster, poet...

F U G
In the extra chapter "A Book of Verse," appended to the 1990 re-issue of Ed Sanders' satiric memoir Tales of Beatnik Glory, Sanders recounts the experience of discovering Allen Ginsberg's Howl & Other Poems as a teenage boy in 1957. Referring to himself in the third person, he says of the days following:

"When he returned to school the next day he was a changed person. 'Holy holy holy holy holy holy', he must have chanted that word, in long continuous singsong sentences, at least four or five thousand times a day. He felt great. Every care assumed before evaporated. He read the poem to anybody who would listen & got into trouble almost immediately." School officials' admonitions to stay away from such "despicable ravings of a homo" were ignored, & before the year was up he'd be suspended for refusing to stop bringing "filth" onto school property

'From now on, nothing holds us back. Cacophony forever. No stopping'

— Ed Sanders, at the first Fugs recording session

http://www.litkicks.com/EdSanders/
http://www.litkicks.com/TalesOfBeatnikGlory/

1939 -- Toma Sik lives (1939-2004). Antimilitarist, pacifist, anti-Zionist, anarchist. Toma Sik; Ŝik
Toma headed the work of the War Resisters International in Israel, where conscientious objection is a "crime." Pioneer of the Israeli-Palestinian search for peace, a forerunner of the present day pacifist-refuseniks. His non-doctrinaire libertarian socialist politics & strong vegan life style were almost unique in the Israel of the 70s & 80s. Today they are embodied in part in the work of groups like Ma'avak Ehad (‘One Struggle’).

http://www.ainfos.ca/04/jul/ainfos00494.html
http://www.wri-irg.org/news/2004/toma-en.htm

1941 -- Canada: First Canadian bank strike.

1942 -- "Your ma & I, both playing hooky from the rigors of
everyday life, went over to the rocks. . ."
JILL TO AL, August 17, 1942

War Correspondence of Jill Oppenheim de Grazia & Alfred de Grazia: AUGUST(B) 1942
http://www.grazian-archive.com/index_2000.htm#C2

1943 -- US Lieutenant General George S. Patton & his 7th Army arrive in Messina, Sicily before British General Bernard Law Montgomery & his 8th Army, winning the unofficial "race to Messina," & completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

1944 -- France: Francisco Ponzán Vidal (1911-1944) dies, shot by the Nazis in Buzet-sur-Tarn, near Toulouse. Militant Spanish anti-fascist guerrillero, anti-Francoist & resistance fighter. anarquista
Trained as a teacher, influenced by Ramón Acín, involved with CNT, helped found the "Council of Aragon" (October 6, 1936), & after the Communist suppression of the Council joined "Columna Confederal Roja y Negra" (28 División Asca- so) & enrolled in the guerrilla "Los Libertadores."

... show more

A refugee in France following defeat of the Republicans, he was interned in the Vernet concentration camp, but escaped & began guerrilla actions in Spain, helping to free Manuel Lozano Guillén & Bernabé Argüelles from prison.

During WWII he was part of a resistance network made up exclusively of Spanish libertarians, organizing the "Pat O'Leary" group, helping many thousands of Jews, allied POWs & antifascists to escape.

The famous so-called SOE "Pat O'Leary" network was in fact organized by Ponzán & it was known throughout the south as "Grupo Ponzán."

Arrested in 1943, Francisco Ponzán is today shot & burned alive by his Nazi captors, two days before the Spanish guerrillas liberate Toulouse.

See Antonio Téllez Solà, The Anarchist Pimpernel: Francisco Ponzán Vidal (1936-1944). The anarchists in the Spanish Civil War & the escape & evasion networks in World War II. (1997)
http://www.ephemanar.net/aout17.html#ponzanvidal
http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/xgxf6h
http://www.foroporlamemoria.info/documentos/2004/fponzan_04082004.htm
http://raforum.info/article.php3?id_article=2023⟨=en
http://direct.perso.ch/aff1404.html
Anarchist Opposition to War (A Collection)

1945 -- "I said that Stalin drastically disarmed after the war. Arthur rightly pointed out that so did we:
Pressure from the isolationist masses forced the government to let go millions of G.I.s, including me. But two days after the announcement of Japan's surrender, Truman said (August 17, 1945) that he would ask Congress to approve a program of universal military training — in peacetime!

He made the request, & got his wish. We re-armed as they disarmed. Briefly."

1945 -- US: An all-white jury takes 10 minutes to convict Peter Paul Hall, 18, a black, of rape, Eufala, Alabama, without benefit of defense testimony.

1948 -- US: Alger hisses, he was never a "Communist agent" (before HUAC during the witchhunts; Whittaker Chambers & Hiss meet face-to-face).

1948 -- Science fiction author & Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is arrested in San Luis Obispo, California for writing bad checks.
http://www.xenu.net/

1958 -- US: Got a Sec? First American attempt to fire a space probe around the moon fails when the Able-1 rocket exploded 77 seconds after launch.

1959 -- US: Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, who will die along with 95 of his followers in a 1993 fire as police end a 51-day siege by storming their Waco, Texass, compound, lives, as Vernon Howell, Houston, Texass.

1962 -- Germany: East German border guards shoot & kill Peter Fechter, 18, attempting to cross the Berlin Wall into the western sector.

1962 -- US: L.A. County Coroner officially labels Marilyn Monroe's death a "probable suicide." Norman Mailer (author of The Naked & the Dead ) subsequently theorized she was murdered, partly on the grounds that "it is extremely rare for a woman to commit suicide in the nude."
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nmailer.htm

1963 -- Spain: Franco wrongly executes the anarquistas Francisco Granados & Joaquín Delgado in the Carabanchel prison, for crimes they did not commit.
Arrested less than three weeks ago for a bombing they did not do, tortured, tried behind closed doors, executed in spite of their protests of innocence... Injustice is swift.

[Details / context]

1963 -- Greateful Dead? Joan Baez introduces Bob Dylan to 14,000 at Forest Hills.

1965 -- Poet Jack Spicer dies. A founder of the famed Six Gallery, & often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance.
"My Vocabulary Did This to Me."

— Spicer's dying words

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Spicer
http://www.sienese-shredder.com/3/peter_gizzi-jack_spicer_bruce_conner_and_the_art_of_the_assemblage.html
http://www.octopusmagazine.com/Issue04/html/features/essays/On_Jack_Spicer.htm
http://jacketmagazine.com/07/spicer-chron.html

1966 -- John Lennon makes another controversial statement in front of a microphone. In Toronto, he expresses his admiration for American draft dodgers.

1966 -- Psychedelic fashion show & tarot reading at the Fillmore Auditorium in Frisco. Mimi Fariña, Jefferson Airplane, & Quicksilver Messenger Service entertain.
http://web.archive.org...richardandmimi.com/ads.html
http://www.jeffersonairplane.com/

1967 -- US: Stokely Carmichael urges American blacks to arm for "total revolution."

1968 -- US: Riots break out in black section of St. Petersburg, ~~Russia~~ Florida.

1969 -- Woodstock weekend continues: Richie Havens, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, The Band, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/dead.html
https://www.zzounds.com/edu--woodstock

1969 -- Hippie leader Abbie Hoffman is knocked offstage by Pete Townshend while attempting to make a political statement during The Who's set at Woodstock. Later, Townshend claims he didn't know Hoffman was Hoffman. Ahhh, the life of the non-descript...
http://www.notbored.org/townsend.html

1969 -- US: A large bomb causes serious damage to the federal building in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

1971 -- Bangladesh: Operation Omega brings food & medicine to war victims across closed India-East Pakistan (Bangladesh) border.

1973 -- US: All Relative? 94 of CBS's 186 affiliates refuse to telecast Tony award-winning drama Sticks & Bones, by David Rabe, about a blind, embittered Vietnam veteran's homecoming. The defection of the affiliates, the largest in the history of network TV, made it virtually impossible to sell commercial spots for the telecast; thus the 100-minute program was shown in many cities without ads. Stations feared the play might offend relatives of POW's in North Vietnam.

1973 -- Conrad Aiken dies, Savannah, Georgia. Short-story writer, novelist, & critic, he is best known for his poetry. Much of his work is about the human need for self-awareness.

1977 -- US: The day after Elvis Presley's death, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Jimmy Carter issues the following statement,
"Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique & irreplaceable. His music & his personality, fusing the styles of white country & black rhythm & blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense & he was a symbol to people the world over, of the vitality, rebelliousness & good humor of his country. Or as James Brown once put it, 'he taught white America to get down.'"

1977 -- México: Go Easy on the Sauce? Two alien bodies are allegedly recovered from a UFO, Tabasco. As they were politicians they could not be resuscitated.

1982 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Pres. Reagan introduces Liberian Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Pres. Doe as "Chairman Moe." Guess which one is Curly?

1985 -- US: Hormel meat-packing strike begins in Austin, Minnesota. The Hormel strike, generally regarded as labor's first major grass roots revolt against corporate downsizing, is suppressed after nearly a year by Hormel in cooperation with both the state & the workers' own national union.

1985 -- US: Creating A Bigger Gap? 900 people loot The Gap on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, California.
Source: SF Bay Revolution Calendar

1986 -- US: Bronze pig statue unveiled at Seattle's Pike Place Market near the fabulous anarchist bookstore, Left Bank Books.
http://www.roslin.ed.ac.uk/alan-archibald/porcine-genome-sequencing-project/

1988 -- Pakistan: President Zia killed by a bomb planted on his private jet.
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1991 -- US: Washington Hemp Expo is held, Volunteer Park, Seattle.

1992 -- Brazil: Tens of thousands demonstrate for Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Collor's resignation, Brasilia.

1992 -- Haiti: Police kill three youths for putting up Aristide posters.

1993 -- US: First of 350 B-52 bombers destroyed, as called for in START I treaty. Republicans & rightwingers suspect a commie plot.

1996 -- US: Greenpeace activists chain themselves to three docked fishing factory trawlers, Seattle.

1998 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Rolling Stone President Bill Clinton eats the cheese (testifies before a US grand jury by closed-circuit TV). 20 seconds of fame.
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?

— Bertolt Brecht

1998 -- Canada: An armed standoff in Gaspe by Micmac Indians & the Quebec government over timber rights ends with a compromise deal.

2002 -- US: Seattle HempFest 17th & 18th.

HempMeister Rick gives up hope of ever coordinating (sic) traffic again, is now their official VideoMeister.
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/series/pottvseries-70-0.html
http://hempfest.org

2002 -- Thodor Mitev (b.1921), medical student, militant Bulgarian anarchist, dies. En 1947, étudiant en médecine, il milite avec les anarchistes bulgares, mais inquiété par la police politique communiste (qui lui proposera de trahir ses compagnons) il s'exile en 1950, en Yougoslavie. Son refus de travailler pour Tito lui vaut de connaître la prison.
http://www.ephemanar.net/aout17.html#mitev

2003 -- US: Seattle HempFest final day (16-17).
BleedsterHempMeister Rick is their official VideoMeister.

Former host of the now defunct THC-TV, an online propaganja page.
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/series/pottvseries-70-0.html

2003 --
US: Revolutionary Soccer Tournament Cup Bay Area, first of a 3-game match!

An Anti-Imperialist Soccer Match... Because Imperialism is Off-Sides! Communists Vs. Anarchists

Anarchists Faceoff with Communists in Soccer Tournament, Piedmont, California.

It's not how you play the game, it's who wins!!
"Agitate! Agitate! Score a goal & smash the state!"

We've run in the streets together. We've been in meetings together. We've strategized against imperialism together. But now it's time for Bay Area Anarchists & Communists to bring our relationship to a whole new level. So we're going to build unity & work out our differences where it really matters — on the soccer field.

[ ANTI - DETAILS! ]
http://www.abbottandcostello.net/clips/who1st2.wav

2004 -- US: Stay out of the Buschs?
BAKER LAKE, Wash. (Aug. 17): Rain-eeeeer .... Bear?
When Fish & Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, east of Mount Baker, there were some clues scattered nearby, dozens of empty beer cans... & not just any cans.

"He drank the Rainier Beer & wouldn't drink the Busch beer," said Lisa Broxson. The bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest.

"He didn't like that (Busch) & consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier."

Agents used a large, humane trap to capture it for relocation, baiting the trap with the usual: doughnuts, honey &, in this case, two open cans of Rainier. That did the trick.

2008 -- US: 17th annual Seattle HempFest (16-17) wraps it up today. 150,000 enjoy the grass(y) park.
Where is BleedsterHempMeister Rick?
http://blog.seattlepi.com/spi/archives/146347.asp

3000 --