KARL KORSCH
Marxist-anarchist philosopher, communist.
CHAUVIN DAY, the patron saint of all Chauvinists.
Florida, New York: OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS Festival, with Polish Celebrants parading in floats, & picking of an Onion Queen. A blessing of herbs & spices.
Loule, Portugal: ASSUMPTION DAY. The ascension of the Virgin Mary bodily into Heaven. Votive lights, skyrockets, brass band plays while running uphill to the shrine. Hundreds of guitars, bagpipes, drums, & a definite "pagan" flavor.
FIRST FRUITS FESTIVAL in the Scottish Highlands: hand-picked, sun-dried corn is ground in a quern, kneaded in a sheep skin & made into a bannock, baked over a fire of rowan wood.
778 -- Roncevalles: Charlemagne's rear guard, returning from Spain, attacked by Basques; Death of Roland.
1515 -- A "forger of coins" is executed in the "Iron Maiden of Nuremberg."
1623 -- Spain: Male impersonator Catalina de Erauzo is convicted of murder. Led a life of adventure & earned a reputation for gambling, dueling & purse-snatching. Fought & won innumerable duels, killing at least seven people. In one fight, she stabbed three men to death. She avoids execution by revealing her sex. Freed & given permission to wear men's clothing, the Pope absolves her of her sins.
[Insurgent Radio Kiosk]
1750 -- French revolutionary & poet Sylvain Maréchal lives. Can be labeled an anarchiste avant la lettre, although the Marxists also claim him. Created a Revolutionary Calendar. & you thought the Daily Bleed had no rivals....
Sylvain Marechal was a poet whose Manifest of the Equals was too much even for the egalitarian conspiracy of Gracchus Babeuf. He also authored Almanach des Honnêtes Gens, in which he proposed a new calendar replacing the names of the Saints with those of the "benefactors of humanity" — philosophers, writers & scientists
1769 -- Napoleon Bonaparte, resident of Elba, lives.
1771 -- Walter Scott lives, Edinburgh. Scottish writer, a born storyteller & master of dialogue, one of the greatest historical novelists.
1785 -- Famous opium addict Thomas De Quincey lives, Manchester. Wrote Confessions of an English Opium-Eater & studies about such German philosophers as Kant, Lessing, Richer. His influence in depicting nightmarish movements of mind is later seen in the works of Edgar Allan Poe & Charles Baudelaire. See: Baudelaire et De Quincey by G.T. Clapton; Thomas De Quincey, Literary Critic by J.E. Jordan (1952); A Flame in Sunlight by E. Sackville West (1936); The Mine & the Mint by A. Goldman (1965).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Quincey
1799 -- In Milan, Italy, Giuseppe Parini (Il giorno) dies.
1845 -- Walter Crane lives, Liverpool. Artist & libertarian socialist. Deeply influenced by Morris's pamphlet "Art & Socialism," Crane became involved in both the Art Workers' Guild & the Arts & Crafts Society. Like Morris, Crane created designs for wallpapers, printed fabrics, tiles & ceramics.
(A now famous collection of Crane's political cartoons, Cartoons for the Cause, was published as a souvenir of the International Socialist Workers & Trade Union Congress that met in London in 1896 (infamous for excluding all the anarchists there).)
1847 -- México: Mutiny of volunteer US regiments invading northern México.
Patriotic regiments from Virginia, Mississippi, & North Carolina rebelled.
Deserters during this popular land grab totalled 9,207: 5,331 regulars, 3,876 volunteers. Those who did not desert became harder & harder to manage.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 1848), takes a mere third of México (some Americans insisting we take the whole country) & the US tosses $15 million bucks into the Mexican pot, leading the "Whig Intelligencer" to declare "we take nothing by conquest.... Thank God."
15 August 1870:
The Louise Michel takes part in a demonstration organized to protest yesterday's arrest of the Blanquists Eudes & Brideau. She carries a petition (begun by Michelet) in their favor, to General Trochu, military governor of Paris.
Source: [Michel Chronologie]
1871 -- Belgian novelist/short-story writer Stijin Streuvels dies in Ingooigem, near Courtrai.
1886 -- Germany: Karl Korsch lives, Tostedt. With the likes of Herman Gorter & Anton Pannekoek, a radical infantile left-communist according to Lenin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Korsch
1887 -- Novelist/playwright Edna Ferber lives, Kalamazoo, Michigan. She believes "The ideal view for daily writing, hour on hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible."
1888 -- Author of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), lives, Wales. British archeological scholar, adventurer, military strategist, & writer.
See: Lawrence & the Arabs by R. Graves (1927); A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence by John E. Mack (1978); A Touch of Genius: The Life of T.E. Lawrence by Malcolm Brown (1989); Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence by Jeremy Wilson (1990).
Emma meets Johann Most, editor of Die Freiheit, & Alexander Berkman; gains employment doing piece work for a silk waist factory. Goldman's political activities include support work at the office of Die Freiheit, & help with the organization of the second anniversary commemoration of the hanging of the anarchist Haymarket martyrs.
Goldman & Berkman become lovers. She shares an apartment with him, his cousin Modest Stein, & their mutual friend Helen Minkin. Berkman & she contemplate returning to Russia when they hear about political repression there, but lack the necessary financial resources.
"I insisted that our cause could not expect me to behave as a nun & that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. I want freedom, the right to self expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things."
1893 -- US: No longer allowed exclusive rights in Bering Sea.
1900 -- US: Riots erupt in NY City as a white plainclothes policeman is killed in a fight with an African-American man. The fourth racial riot in the city's history.
1901 -- Arch Rock, danger to Bay shipping, blasted with 30 tons of nitro. Triggers the 1906 earthquake.
1906 -- US: At the second meeting of the Niagara Movement at Harpers Ferry, W.E.B. DuBois demands equal citizenship rights for African-Americans, saying, "We will not be satisfied to take one jot or little less than our full manhood."
1906 -- US: First freight delivery tunnel system begins, lower Chicago.
1907 -- Spain: Carmen Conde lives (1907-1996), in Cartagena. Anarchist feminist activist, professor, poet.
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Carmen published her first book of poetry in 1929, & in 1931 began living with her companion, poet Antonio Oliver Belmás, until his death in 1968.
In 1936 she joined the Mujeres Libres (Free Women), & during the Spanish Revolution collaborated on their journal of the same name, as well as doing lecture tours.
She & Oliver founded Archivo Semanario de Rubén Darío at the University of Madrid after the Spanish Revolution. Conde taught as a professor of Spanish literature & won numerous prizes for her drama & poetry. She collaborated on La Estafeta Literaria & RNE under the pseudonym Florentina del Mar. In her 80s she developed Alzheimer's disease.
1913 -- France: Anarchist Congress of the Fédération communiste-anarchiste révolutionnaire assembles in Paris (August 15-17) at Maison des syndiqués. Includes Yves Bidamant, Sébastien Faure, Jean Grave, Jane Morand, Henriette Tilly & Charles-Ange Laisant.
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From this congress emerges the idea for the "La coopérative libertaire du Cinéma du Peuple," which opens October 28, 1913, thanks to the constant efforts of Robert Guérard, Gustave Cauvin, Chevalier & Bidamant.
Une note de la préfecture de police est aussitôt rédigée le 18 aout: « À la fin du congrès anarchiste-communiste, on a annoncé la formation d’un comité dont le but est de monter un cinématographe destiné à faire de la propagande anarchiste. »
See "1913-1914 : La coopérative libertaire du Cinéma du Peuple." by Isabelle Marinone
http://raforum.info/dissertations/spip.php?rubrique36 http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/ReadingLists_FilmHistory http://melusine.univ-paris3.fr/astu/Marinone.pdfaoût 1913, il participe à un congrès anarchiste à Paris
André GIRARD With the resulting one from the anarchist congress of Paris, in August 1913, it belongs to the 8 members designated to constitute the new " communist anarchistic Federation ." // A l'issu du congrès anarchiste de Paris, en août 1913, il fait partie des 8 membres désignés pour constituer la nouvelle" Fédération anarchiste communiste." (http://www.ephemanar.net/aout08.html) [Sources]
1914 -- Italy: Il ministro degli esteri inglese acconsente alle richieste dello stato italiano di compensi territoriali, ma i successi militari tedeschi sono, per il momento, estremamenti dissuasivi di una immediata entrata in guerra. [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1917 -- Salvadoran religious leader Oscar Romero lives, Ciudad Barrios.
2003 Daily Bleed Saint OSCAR ROMERO
Salvadoran theologist of people's liberation, martyr.
Assassinated, like numerous Catholic priests, by US-supported death squads.
1918 -- Russia: The American 27th Infantry lands in Vladivostok ("to steady any efforts at self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance") & immediately spearheads a Japanese-initiated attack against Bolshevist forces.
1918 -- "The Sinking of the Lusitania," first feature length cartoon, released.
The US called the actual sinking a monstrous act, claiming the Lusitania carried an innocent cargo.
"Actually, the Lusitania was heavily armed: it carried 1,248 cases of 3-inch shells, 4,927 boxes of cartridges (1,000 rounds in each box), & 2,000 more cases of small-arms ammunition. Her manifests were falsified to hide this fact, & the British & American governments lied about the cargo."
1918 -- US: Librado Rivera et Ricardo Flores Magón sont condamnés à quinze et vingt ans de prison pour avoir publié le 16 mars 1918, dans le journal "Regeneración" le manifeste "Aux anarchistes du monde et aux travailleurs en général." Ils seront conduits au pénitencier de McNeil Island near Seattle.
[Details / context]
1920 -- Italy: In Florence, national meeting of Italian anarchists to intensify solidarity & agitation for victims of political repression.
Present are: Errico Malatesta & Clodoveo Bonazzi for the U.A.I.; Gigi Damiani, for the newspaper "Umanità Nova"; Diego Guadagnini for the "Libertarian Committee of Defense"; Dante Pagliai & Emilio Spinaci of the Milan "Committee For the Political Victims"; Giuseppe Sartini, for the U.S.I.; Domenico Giulietti for the "Federation of Sea Workers"; Andrea Pedrini & Cesare Stazzi for the "Labor market of Ancône"; Camillo Berneri for the "Federation of Young Revolutionaries" & Andrea Viglongo for the "Committee of the Turin Factory Councils".
1923 -- Germany: Mid-August: Emma Goldman & her niece Stella are arrested by the Bavarian police following their arrival in Munich. Police allege that Emma conducted a secret mission in 1893 (during the period when she was imprisoned at Blackwell's Island). Both are ordered to leave Bavaria. Stella later returns to the US.
1925 -- Oscar Peterson lives, Montreal, Canada. Classically trained in the piano, works with top Canadian jazz bands until 1949, when he first appears in New York City's Carnegie hall. A jazz innovator who forges a synthesis of bop & swing into his own unique style.
[Sources on Canadian Jazz]
1931 -- Ernest Lassy completes longest canoe journey without port (6,102 miles).
1935 -- US: Willey Post & passenger Will Rogers killed in a plane crash, Point Barrow, Alaska.
Will Power?: We honor Will Rogers with a nuclear submarine, the USS Will Rogers SSBN 659, armed with 16 C-3 POSEIDON missiles having an explosive capability greater than all the bombs of World War II.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government & report the facts.
— Will Rogers
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
— Will Rogers
1935 -- Paul Signac dies (of "smallpox"?). French artist, pointillist (a technique some contemporary critics described as "painted confetti" or "artistic smallpox"). Best known for his his association with his fellow anarchistes Maximilien Luce, Félix Fénéon, Camille Pissarro & Georges Seurat. Close friend of Matisse, Marquet, Camoin, Valtat & Van Dongen, et al.
Like many artists & writers associated with the Neo-Impressionist group he was closely linked with the anarchist movement. One of the most interesting works of his career is a large canvas entitled The Wreckers of 1897-1899. Signac's pick-axe wielding wrecker was an open reference to his political engagement & his anarchist desire to fight against the old, corrupt order of society.
Profoundly anarchist, in 1914 Signac was quite shaken by Jean Grave & Peter Kropotkin when they came out in favor of Allied intervention in WWI (see the "Manifesto of the 16" / manifeste des 16) & was unable to paint for the next three years. Signac then joined the pacifists around Romain Rolland. Toward the end of his life he joined with other artists & intellectuals to fight the fascist movement.
"For the Vultures" is a stark image of a soldier's body preyed upon by a vulture. It was his protest against the notorious murder of a young soldier by the "Biribi" military police establishment in the French colony of Algeria in 1909. It was published in a special edition of the anarchist weekly, "Les Temps Nouveaux."
Signac's pen & ink drawing evokes the event with a stark sense of horror, as the young man's hands clutch at the ground, a yawning gap between him & the distant town. Algiers is delicately sketched with fine lines & dots, palm trees echoing the shapes of the ambiguous winged shapes hovering above.
Signac argued that the "pure aesthetes, revolutionaries by temperament, leaving the beaten track, paint what they see, as they themselves experience it, & very often unconsciously, deliver a solid blow of the pickaxe to the old social edifice."
1935 -- Italy: Pur di scongiurare l'aggressione italiana in Etiopia, il governo francese e quello inglese arrivano persino a ipotizzare un protettorato congiunto sull'Etiopia (paese facente parte della Società delle Nazioni) con la preponderanza amministrativa e militare dello stato italiano. Mussolini definisce il piano un tentativo di "umiliare l'Italia nel peggiore dei modi." [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1936 -- France: Toulouse, se tient le congrès constitutif d'une nouvelle organisation "La Fédération Anarchiste Française" (qui fait suite à une scission au sein de l'Union Anarchiste). Voline & André Prudhommeaux, qui éditent le journal "Terre Libre" en seront les principaux animateurs. http://www.ephemanar.net/aout16.html
1938 -- Spain: Lincoln Brigade sent back to front, to Sierra Pandols southeast of Gandesa; the battalion strength is down to 300, with fewer than 100 Americans; they are bombarded by artillery & aircraft for 10 days, but hold Hill 66. [Sources]
1939 -- The fiftieth anniversary of Emma Goldman's entry into anarchist ranks; she organizes a celebration for September to mark the occasion & to create a long-term Spanish Relief Fund.
1945 -- US: Riot in San Francisco celebrating end of World War II.
"They wanted a riot, so they had one."
— Lou Reed
1947 -- Indian Independence Day proclaimed in India & Pakistan.
After two decades of nonviolent activism, India becomes the first major Third World country in the 20th century to win independence from colonial rule. Dozens more countries follow in the next 20 years.
1947 -- "I was born in the city of Bombay...once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. & the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more...On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact."
1951 -- US: New York, première of the "Living Theatre" a lieu au domicile même de Julian Beck et de Judith Malina, faute d'avoir pu trouver une salle et de l'argent pour financer le spectacle. Four pieces are performed: anarchist Paul Goodman's "Childish Jokes"; Gertrude Stein's "Ladies' Voices"; Bertolt Brecht's "He who says yes & he who says no"; & Garcia Lorca's "The dialogue of the manikin & the young man." http://www.livingtheatre.org/ http://www.ephemanar.net/aout15.html
1963 -- US: 170 women sit-in to protest employment discrimination by bank, E. St. Louis, Illinois.
1963 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Governor Ross Barnett attempts to bar the graduation of James Meredith on grounds that the University of Mississippi's first black had violated a school order against inflammatory remarks.
1965 -- Chile: Founding of the MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria).
Originally the MIR was an attempt to create a strong anarcho-syndicalist movement, but in 1967 Marxist-Leninist's took over, polluting the MIR. Dedicated anarcho-syndicalists, Ernesto Miranda (leader of the Shoe Workers Union & once declared an "illustrious son" by Fidel Castro himself), Clotario Blest (Christian trade union leader) & their anarchist comrades quit.
The next year, the VOP was formed (Vanguardia Organizada del Pueblo) by a group of young men who rejected the authoritarianism of the MIR. There were two tendendies within it: Panekoism (antiauthoritarian Marxist) & anarchism. Both the MIR & the VOP had their influence & during 1969 they intervened within many work-place struggles forcing the bosses to sign agreements drawn up by the working class (& financing their activities from the rich through bank robberies).
1967 -- US: Martin Luther King, Jr. urges civil disobedience drive in northern cities & support of a peace candidate in 1968 (at Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta).
1967 -- US: Picasso's gift sculpture unveiled in Chicago. 162-ton bronze thingee
in Daley Plaza immediately across from a sculpture by Joan Miro.
And we didn't find a sponsor to pay the license fees
for all the images presented on our site.
1967 -- US: Count Basie & his Orchestra & Chuck Berry at the Fillmore Auditorium.
1967 -- US: At a convention of the National Student Association, Allard K. Lowenstein & Curtis Gans formally launch the "Dump Johnson" movement—an effort to oppose the renomination of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. Source: [Chicago '68: A Chronology]
1969 -- US: Temporary Autonomous Zone Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens for three days on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York.
Over 400,000 attend, most without tickets, prompting officials to say the festival is open & free. On stage come Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, The Who, the Grateful Dead, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Crosby, Still Nash & Young & the Jefferson Airplane among others. Things that helped make Woodstock a unique event included, but were not limited to, rampant drug use, not enough food or sanitation, three deaths, two births & four miscarriages. Oh, & lack of cops.
1971 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Dick M Nixon imposes 90-day wage-price freeze.
The freeze is in large part a response to the climate of worker unruliness & independence, typified by the defiant phone workers. Aside from related economic considerations, the freeze & the ensuing controls were adopted because the unions needed government help in restraining the workers. Sham strikes clearly lose their effectiveness if employees refuse to play their assigned roles remaining, for example, on strike on their own.
George Meany, AFL-CIO head, had been calling for a wage-price freeze since 1969, & in the weeks prior to August 15 held a number of very private meetings with Nixon. Though compelled to publicly decry the freeze as "completely unfair to the worker" & "a bonanza to big business," he did not even call for an excess profits tax; he did come out strongly for a permanent wage-price control board & labor's place on it, however.
1975 -- US: Joanne Little — accused of murder in killing her jailer, in self-defense against rape — acquitted.
1982 -- Members of 7th International Nonviolent March swim across "closed" border between Spain & Gibraltar.
1991 -- US: Paul Simon plays a free concert at New York's Central Park in front of an estimated 750,000 people.
1995 -- China: Greenpeace action in Tian an Men Square, members from Europe & the USA unfurl a banner on Tian an Men Square in Beijing, reading "Stop all atomic testing, stop atomic testing in China." They are arrested, interrogated & deported.
2009 -- US: Providence Anarchist Bookfair Fun! Books! Beer! Dancing! Revolution in the air! 1pm to 1am on Empire Street, Providence, Rhode Island.
3000 --
"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country.
I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime."
— Albert Einstein, 1947
At the time of his death, the FBI dossier on Albert Einstein had grown to nearly 100,000 pages,
yet they contain not one scintilla of evidence indicating he was disloyal or involved in any subversive or criminal activity.
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[Details / context]
The fiftieth anniversary of Emma Goldman's entry into anarchist ranks; she organizes a celebration for September to mark the occasion & to create a long-term Spanish Relief Fund.
Originally the MIR was an attempt to create a strong anarcho-syndicalist movement, but in 1967 Marxist-Leninist's took over, polluting the MIR. Dedicated anarcho-syndicalists, Ernesto Miranda (leader of the Shoe Workers Union & once declared an "illustrious son" by Fidel Castro himself), Clotario Blest (Christian trade union leader) & their anarchist comrades quit.
