DECEMBER 30

VICTOR SERGE

Individualist anarchist, anti-Stalinist communist, literary conspirator.

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FESTIVAL OF ENORMOUS CHANGES AT THE LAST MINUTE.

Philippines: JOSÉ RIZAL DAY. Poet & novelist executed for writings, his martyrdom a catalyst for the Philippine Revolution.

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1621 -- England: King James I cracks Protestation of Parliament.


1703 -- Earthquake in Tokyo responsible for the deaths of approximately 200,000 people.



1786 -- Bjarni Vigfússon Thórarensen lives, Brautarholt, near Reykjavík. First Romantic nationalist poet of Iceland.


1813 -- Iroquois warriors & British troops capture Buffalo, New York.



1816 -- Two & a half years after eloping to Switzerland Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (daughter of the philosophical anarchist William Godwin) & Percy Bysshe Shelley are married, upon learning that Shelley's first wife has drowned herself.
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/296.html
http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/18thlinks.htm




1819 -- Theodor Fontane lives, Neuruppin, Brandenburg. Considered the first master of modern Realistic fiction in Germany.



1825 -- England: Poachers gather in a militia forty strong to terrorise Colonel Kingscote in his home while comrades go shooting on his private estate in Gloucestershire.
Source: [Calendar Riots]



1847 -- Germany: John Peter Altgeld lives, Niederselters, Prussia [now in Germany]. Reformist Democratic governor of Illinois (1893-97) known principally for his pardon (June 26, 1893) of German-American anarchists "involved" in the Haymarket Riot where seven police were killed. This principled act, unusual for a politician, costs him his political career.

And thank this Man that they are free again.
And He—to all the world this Man dares say:
"Curse as you will! I have been just this day."

— Voltairine de Cleyre, excerpt, John P. Altgeld

1865 -- Rudyard Kipling lives, Bombay, India. British Imperialist celebrator-apologist, author. Christopher Morley assesses the first English winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907: "He writes a story ostensibly about big howitzers, & it is really a lover's tribute to Jane Austen."
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kipling.htm
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janeinfo.html


1869 -- Stephen Leacock lives, Swanmore, Hampshire, England. Internationally popular Canadian humorist, educator, lecturer, & author of more than 30 books.



1876 -- Mustafa Lutfi al- Manfaluti lives, Manfalut, Egypt. Essayist, short-story writer, pioneer of modern Arabic prose.


1883 -- Marie Gevers lives, Edegem, Belgium. Franco-Belgian novelist/poet whose work, almost without exception, evokes the Kempenland, a rural area where she spent most of her life at her family estate.

1890 -- Belgium: Victor Serge lives, Brussels. Novelist, poet, historian, & militant activist. Individualist anarchist, later remains sympathetic to anarchists but derided by them ("The Bolsheviks' pet anarchist") because of his involvement with Russian Communists & Trotskyists. Like Daniel Guérin (& many other critical Marxists), as he grew older, his politics moved increasingly leftward, leading him later in life to espouse a hybrid of anarchism & Marxism.

... show details

Victor Serge lived in Paris in 1909, & was involved with the anarchists, particularly with his childhood friend Raymond Callemin. He was condemned to five years prison for complicity with the Bonnot Gang.

Serge collaborated on the newspapers "L'anarchie" (which he edited), "Tierra y Libertad" & "Solidaridad Obrera" (CNT newspaper in Barcelona). He went to Russia in 1918, & joined the Communist Party. Critical of the direction of the party, he was kicked out in 1928, & imprisoned & barely escaped execution. Other members of his family were not so fortunate. Released in 1935 through the appeals of French intellectuals. Lived in Belgium, then France, barely escaping to Mexico in 1940 (from the Nazis).

Wrote Le rétif (1909-1912), The Anarchists & the Experiment of the Russian Revolution, Memoirs of a Revolutionist, The Obscure Turning, Midnight in the Century (1939), Conquered City, etc.

City Lights books recently published his poems (a fine little volume entitled Resistance, translated by Jim Brook).

Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary is cited in "CounterPunch" magazine's (edited by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair) "Favorite 100 Nonfiction Books in Translation, Published in English Since 1900".
http://www.counterpunch.org/1999/06/15/counterpunch-s-favorite-100-nonfiction-books-in-translation-published-in-english-since-1900/

See also,
http://struggle.ws/rbr/rbr4_serge.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSserge.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/index.htm

"Il partit, il disparut. Par une note, en corps sept, reléguée dans l'infime rubrique des faits divers, les "Izvestia" annoncèrent sa déportation pour "menées insurrectionnelles," accusation extravagante jusqu'à la bouffonnerie."

       — Victor Serge, Le tournant obscur

1894 -- US: No Bluffing: Amelia Jenks Bloomer suffragist dies Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Bloomers named for her).




1895 -- L.P. Hartley lives. English novelist, short-story writer, critic whose works fuse a subtle observation of manners traditional to the English novel with an interest in psychological nuance.


1896 -- Philippines: Novelist & poet José Rizal executed.

A militant reformist, his novel El Filibusterismo led to his being tried by the military & executed today. His death was a catalyst in the Philippine Revolution. Countless towns, streets, monuments & numerous parks around the world are named in his honor (including a 9-acre park in Seattle). Today is now an official Philippines holiday.

[Details / context]


1903 -- US: Last of the Mohicans? Tribal Revenge?: Electric lamp sets fire to Iroquois Theater in Chicago; 602 die, many trampled to death as a result of defective provisions for safety & exit.


1905 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho assassinated by a bomb explosion during period of many bitter labor disputes in the state.

Workers remembering workers' history: prosperous businessman Frank Steunenberg, who had become governor of Idaho on a Populist Party "defend the working man" ticket & then proceeded to call on federal troops to crush the 1899 miners strike, is blown to pieces by a bomb attached to his front gate.

1905 -- Daniil Kharms lives (17 December Old Style; 1905-1942), St. Petersburg.

Daily Bleed Saint December 30, 2002-2004

"Literary Hooligan," starved to death
in Respected & Beloved Comrade Leader
Uncle Joe Stalin's prisons.

There are different accounts of his death. In the gloomiest version, he was simply forgotten after the arrest & eaten in his cell by rats.

This is too much like one of his own stories to be true.

The sanitation commission, while making its rounds of the apartments, saw Kalugin, found him unsanitary & good for nothing & ordered the housing cooperative to throw Kalugin out with the garbage.

They folded Kalugin in half & threw him out as garbage.

— Daniil Kharms,
"The Dream," August 22, 1936

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniil_Kharms
http://www.klassika.ru/read.html?proza/harms/xarms_engl.txt
http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm

1908 -- No Balls?: Wearing masks at balls forbidden in Boston.
http://www.guerrillagirls.com/



1910 -- Paul Bowles, composer, author, husband of author Jane Bowles, lives (1910-1999), New York City.
http://www.litkicks.com/PaulBowles/
http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00141.xml
http://www.paulbowles.org/

1911 -- China: Sun Yat-sen elected President of the United Provinces of China.


1916 -- Poet, Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen ("Anthem for Doomed Youth"), of the Manchester Regiment, leaves England for the Western Front.

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owena.htm
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/247.html
http://users.fulladsl.be/spb1667/cultural/owen.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen
http://www.warpoets.org/conflicts/greatwar/sassoon/
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/siegfried-sassoon

1918 -- Al Purdy lives, Wooler, Ontario, Canada.

One of a group of important Canadian poets (Milton Acorn, Alden Nowlan, Patrick Lane are others) who have little formal education & whose roots are in Canada's working-class culture. During the Depression, he rode the rods to Vancouver & worked there for several years at a number of manual occupations. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/purdy/index.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Purdy

1922 -- Russia: In the post-revolutionary period, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Byelorussia, the Ukraine, & the Transcaucasian Federation. Also known as the Soviet Union, the new "republic" is the successor to the Russian Empire & the first state in the world to be based on Marxist communism.


1923 -- Sara Lidman, one of the most acclaimed & widely read novelists of the post-World War II generation of Swedish writers, lives, Missenträsk. Her studies at the University of Uppsala are interrupted by tuberculosis, & she begins writing. Her first two novels, Tjärdalen ("The Tar Still," 1953) & Hjortronlandet ("Cloudberry Land," 1955), deal with the rural life of her childhood & youth. In the 1960s she visits Africa & Vietnam & write of her experiences.


1924 -- Edwin Hubble announces existence of other galactic systems. Now if he could just find a telescope that works...
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980606.html


1926 --

Germany: Nudists Demand Skiing Huts. Buncha wimps. http://www.iisg.nl/today/en/27-12.php

1928 -- US: Ellas Bates, rock 'n' roll pioneer, lives, Mississippi.


1933 -- Romania: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Ion Duca, liberal premier, assassinated by a member of the Iron Guard, an extreme rightist movement in the country.

The Iron Guard was founded by Corneliu Codreanu during the 1920s, & during the 1930s, imitated Germany's Nazi Party in both ideology & methods. After Duca's assassination, the Iron Guard was outlawed in Romania. However, its members carried on as the "All for the Fatherland" political party.

1935 -- Ethiopia: Italian bombers destroy Swedish Red Cross unit.

Poet Langston Hughes, observing the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini, wrote simply:

The little fox is still.
The dogs of war have made their kill.

http://web.archive.org/...poetsagainstthewar.org/newsletter/2006/news_zinn_fall06.asp

1936 -- US: GM workers sit-down strike, which began two days ago in Cleveland, Ohio, spreads to Flint, Michigan. But me no butts, beats blisterin' those tired doggies...

1937 --

"Whistle While You Work" Artie Shaw & His New Music

Shaw's swinging 'cover' of this 'think positive' anthem is waxed just nine days after the world premiere of the film which introduced it, Disney's first animated feature, Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs. Dire predictions for 'Walt's folly' were disproved by the popularity of the film, bolstered by the memorable songs provided by lyricist Larry Morey & composer Frank Churchill. Artie Shaw's talent as arranger, player, & band leader earned him the 'New King of Swing' tag in the wake of his hit rendition of Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" in 1938. Ironically, Americans were savoring the optimism of "Whistle While You Work" as the recession of 1937-38 was hurling two million of them back into unemployment. The whistling only became earnest when America turned its energies to defeating the Axis. At a terrible price, World War II ended the Great Depression. — Mark Humphrey, "The Great Depression: American Music in the '30s" http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/mirror/Depressionmusic2.htm See also http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,301462,00.html

1941 -- Netherlands: Nazis require Dutch physicians to join Nazi organization. Forced to pay dues, Dutch Treat?


1944 -- France: Romain Rolland, author & pacifist, dies. Won 1915 Nobel Prize.

"Profondément engagé en faveur de la paix et l'union de fraternelle des hommes, je suis un intellectuel Européen, un artiste. Favoriser tout ce qui peut rapprocher les êtres vivants, bref contribuer à la compréhension de toutes les âmes humaines, voila ma tâche principale. Je veux être une sorte de chaînon manquant qui permet de lier ensemble les mentalités des hommes et des femmes quelque soient leurs races et religions. Pour ce faire il faut être à l'écoute des autres pour les aimer tous."

http://www.almaz.com/nobel/literature/1915a.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rolland.htm

1946 -- Singer/poet Patti Smith lives.



1952 -- US: Out of Lynch Pins?: Tuskegee Institute reports this is first year in 71 years with no lynchings in the country.

1959 --

Spain: Francisco Sabaté ("Quico") & his guérilla group (Antonio Miracle, Rogelio Madrigal, Francisco Conesa & Martín Ruiz) slip into the country from the French border. A fateful attempt to reach Barcelona, they are forced into shoot-outs with the Guardia Civile (alerted & aided by French Intelligence) & all are killed within the next week. "Quico," the nightmare of the Spanish fascists, is finally shot down on January 5th. The entire episode causes a sensation throughout Spain, a reminder of the old resistance days. See Antonio Téllez's Sabate: Guerrilla Extraordinary, p.170. [Details / context]

dezembro déc. 14 Attentat contre SILVA RENARD du massacre d’Iquique de 1907;

(Antonio Miracle Guitart, Rogelio Madrigal Torres, Francisco Conesa Alcaraz y Martín Ruiz Montoya. ) , only to be trapped near the Manol river. The Guardia Civil had prepared a worthy reception for just such an occaision, border posts & patrols beefed up & on high alert. All of the guerrillas but Sabate, who was badly wounded, were killed. Surrounded & nose-to-nose with the lieutenant in charge, he shot the lieutenant point blank. Then Sabaté had an immediate inspiration -- in the confusion of the dark he managed to slip away by boldly impersonating the lieutenant.

Entonces Sabaté tuvo una inspiración inmediata. Se puso a avanzar en la dirección de donde había venido el teniente repitiendo las mismas palabras que había oído: “No tiréis, que soy el teniente... No tiréis, que soy el teniente...” Así logró franquear las líneas de los Guardias Civiles.

He made it to a train & to Sant Celoni to treat his wounds hoping eventually to make it to Barcelona. The latter was not to be, as he was trapped once again & shot down on January 5. Conscious of its next death, before infiltrating for the last time in Spain, December/DECEMBER of 1959, one took leave of its last friends: “A strong hug to all. Thanks & until the next one,… if we become to see. The Civil Guard, with sufficient time, had prepared in the border a worthy recibimiento of Sabaté. They had organized posts station & monitoring in all mounts of the zone, crossroads & ways, entrances & exits of the towns. Troops of reinforcement, to face any eventuality, were quartered in Besalú, Beuda & Albanyá. Other patrols crossed the region incessantly. Day 30 of December/DECEMBER, the group of Sabaté it was located by the margins of the Manol river. When the Civil Guard with innumerable cash was able to surround to Francisco Sabaté & his group in one masía, its end occurred by discounted. The luck & the value of the guerrilla obtained the impossible thing. When arriving the night, the group left sincerely from masía gambling the whole by the whole. There it waited for the death to them. All the members of the group fell in the attempt except Sabaté. This the exit but without running tried, on the contrary, fallen down in the ground & to drays. Quiet it went advancing centimeter to centimeter towards the first scrubs. But the Civil Guards were seized to few meters. Immovable, almost without breathing, he heard that somebody went towards him, to drays, also saying: “You do not throw, that I am the lieutenant… You do not throw, that I am the lieutenant…” Indeed, Francisco Fuentes was the lieutenant of the Civil Guard, who, almost without knowing it, occurred of noses with the Quico. This, almost point-blank, he fired a shot to him killing to him in the act. The other guards could not know of what she arms came the firing. Then Sabaté had an immediate inspiration. It was put to advance in the direction from where the lieutenant had come repeating the same words that had heard: “You do not throw, that I am the lieutenant… You do not throw, that I am the lieutenant…” Thus it managed to cross the lines of the Civil Guards. But it had received several shots, perhaps nonmortal but the loss of blood debilitated much to him. It took a train by assault & pistol in hand was made lead until near Sant Celoni. It was thrown of the train before entering needles treating to look for in the city a doctor. But the alert had been given & the Civil Guard & the Somatén persecuted to him close by.

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Consciente de su próxima muerte, antes de infiltrarse por última vez en España, en diciembre / DECEMBER de 1959, se despidió de sus últimos amigos: “Un fuerte abrazo a todos. Gracias y hasta la próxima, ...si nos volvemos a ver. La Guardia Civil, con tiempo suficiente, había preparado en la frontera un recibimiento digno de Sabaté. Habían organizado apostaderos y vigilancia en todos los montes de la zona, cruces de carretera y caminos, entradas y salidas de los pueblos. Tropas de refuerzo, para hacer frente a cualquier eventualidad, estaban acantonadas en Besalú, Beuda y Albanyá. Otras patrullas recorrían incesantemente la región. El día 30 de diciembre / DECEMBER, el grupo de Sabaté fue localizado por las márgenes del río Manol. Cuando la Guardia Civil con innumerables efectivos consiguió cercar a Francisco Sabaté y su grupo en una masía, su final se daba por descontado. La suerte y el valor del guerrillero consiguieron lo imposible. Al llegar la noche, el grupo salió a pecho descubierto de la masía jugándose el todo por el todo. Allí les esperaba la muerte. Todos los miembros del grupo cayeron en el intento excepto Sabaté. Este intentó la salida pero sin correr, al contrario, tumbado en el suelo y a rastras. Silenciosamente fue avanzando centímetro a centímetro hacia los primeros matorrales. Pero los guardias civiles estaban agazapados a pocos metros. Inmóvil, casi sin respirar, oyó que alguien se dirigía hacia él, también a rastras, diciendo: “No tiréis, que soy el teniente... No tiréis, que soy el teniente...” Efectivamente, era el teniente de la Guardia Civil Francisco Fuentes, quien, casi sin saberlo, se dio de narices con el Quico. Este, casi a bocajarro, le descerrajó un tiro matándole en el acto. Los demás guardias no podían saber de qué arma procedía el disparo. Entonces Sabaté tuvo una inspiración inmediata. Se puso a avanzar en la dirección de donde había venido el teniente repitiendo las mismas palabras que había oído: “No tiréis, que soy el teniente... No tiréis, que soy el teniente...” Así logró franquear las líneas de los Guardias Civiles. Pero había recibido varios balazos, tal vez no mortales pero la pérdida de sangre le debilitaba mucho. Tomó un tren por asalto y pistola en mano se hizo conducir hasta cerca de Sant Celoni. Se tiró del tren antes de entrar en agujas tratando de buscar en la ciudad a un médico. Pero la alerta había sido dada y la Guardia Civil y el Somatén le perseguían de cerca.

[Details / context]

Gimme shelter...new aristocracy of the caves & sewer rats The international edition of "The New York Times" runs an announcement by the Civil Defense Letter Committee regarding fallout shelters. In January 1962 a critical Bilingual tract in English & French, is issued by the "European Committee for the Pursuit of Human Expansion" & also appears in the journal "Mutant," Spring 1962. The tract has in actual fact been written by Situationists Guy Debord & Asger Jorn. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/chronology.html | [Situationist Resources]

You get your lawyer
& I'll get mine
We'll all get together
& have a real bad time.

       — George Harrison, "Sue Me Blues"

1971 -- US: Daniel Ellsberg indicted by a federal grand jury for releasing Pentagon papers to the news media.


1972 -- Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Dick M orders end to bombing. During the 12 days of the "Christmas Bombing" in Viet Nam, the US (by its own count) lost 15 B-52's & 11 fighter-bombers, with 93 airmen killed or missing. Hanoi claims 76 planes were shot down.

Nixon, elected on the campaign lie that he had a "secret" plan to end the war (he had no plan whatsoever), made a last attempt to get North Vietnam to submit to US hegemony: 18 days of "carpet" bombing of homes, hospitals, & civilians of Hanoi & Haiphong through Christmas; also, for the first time, B-52 pilots refuse to fly missions.

1982 -- US: Ahh...Now I Remember You?: Cow Creek band of Umpqua tribe (Oregon) gains federal recognition.


1987 -- US: An unusually heavy demand for non-smoking seats aboard a TWA flight from Boston to Los Angeles leads to a complete smoking ban. Toward the end of the flight, 11 passengers protest by lighting cigarettes, & the flight attendant who demands that they be extinguished is physically assaulted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIN8MmMloZE



1995 -- US: Right-to-Life (sic) gunman murders Shannon Lowney of Planned Parenthood & Lee Ann Nichols of Preterm, women's health care clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts.

1997 -- Danilo Dolci, "The Sicilian Gandhi," twice a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, dies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danilo_Dolci
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danilo_Dolci


2006 -- Iraq: Vanquished strongman Saddam Hussein hanged, Baghdad.


2009 -- US applies tariffs on Chinese steel pipes, as part of a series of tariffs aimed at Chinese imports. The price of bongs & pipe tobacco in the US soars.


3000 --

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"The ILO has just published a report estimating the level of global unemployment — understood to mean the position of not having enough work for subsistence — in January 1994 at about 30%.

That, it says accurately, is a crisis worse than that in the 1930s. It is, moreover, just one part of a general worldwide human rights catastrophe.

UNESCO estimates that about 500,000 children die every year from debt repayment alone.

Debt repayment means that commercial banks made bad loans to their favorite dictators, & those loans are now being paid by the poor, who have absolutely nothing to do with it, & of course by the taxpayers in the wealthy countries, because the debts are socialized.

That's under the system of socialism for the rich that we call free enterprise: nobody expects the banks to have to pay for the bad loans — that's your job & my job."

       — Noam Chomsky, "How Free is the Free Market?"
       http://archive.8m.net/chomsky.htm

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3001 --

"In the long run we are all dead."       — John Maynard Keynes, economist

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