THE FALSE BARON VON KÖNIG. A dossier by Raymond Batkin eBook £1.50/€2.00 (see eBookshelf)

 Reportage  Comments Off on THE FALSE BARON VON KÖNIG. A dossier by Raymond Batkin eBook £1.50/€2.00 (see eBookshelf)
May 142015
 

VonKoenigTHE FALSE BARON VON KÖNIG. A dossier by Raymond Batkin. — Look Inside eBook £1.50/€2.00 (see eBookshelf ). Also available from Kindle and Kobo.   Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE also ChristieBooks on KOBO  — THE FALSE BARON VON KÖNIG. A dossier  — £2.50.

The so-called ‘Baron von König’ has been of interest to historians of the Spanish anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements since 1918, mainly because of his relationship with Superintendent Manuel Bravo Portillo, head of Barcelona’s Special Services Brigade (the then Brigada Politico-Social); that and the fact that on the latter’s death at the hands of a CNT (the anarcho-syndicalist labour union) defence group in September 1919, von König, a French secret service agent, took over as head of the pistoleros, the anti-union death squads funded by the Patronal, the Catalan employers’ confederation. Von König’s role as the killers’ gangmaster was explored in some detail in the three-volume work ‘¡Pistoleros! — The Chronicles of Farquhar McHarg’, but little was known about his activities pre- and post-Spain 1914-1920. Raymond Batkin has prepared the following dossier on ‘von König’s’ background following the publication of French author Éric Maillard’s biography (in French), Rudolf Stallmann alias Baron von König – Rodolfe Lemoine alias Rex; it is the first book based on the life of Rudolf Stallmann (his birth name) from his early years in Berlin through to his death in a French military prison in 1946.

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THE LIFE, TRIAL, AND DEATH OF FRANCISCO FERRER GUARDIA by William Archer. Edited and Introduced by Dave Poole (Kindle Edition)

 Anarchist ideas, Barcelona, CNT, Obituaries, Reportage, Spanish anarchism  Comments Off on THE LIFE, TRIAL, AND DEATH OF FRANCISCO FERRER GUARDIA by William Archer. Edited and Introduced by Dave Poole (Kindle Edition)
Apr 252013
 

The Life, Trial and Death of Francisco Ferrer Guardia,  William Archer (Edited and Introduced by Dave Poole) (ISBN 978-1-873976-02-9),  £2.71  ChristieBooks. PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS. First published in 1977 by Cienfuegos Press, Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, This fully revised ChristieBooks (Kindle eBook) edition published 2013. READ INSIDE!

UK : £2.71 ; USA : $4.13 ; Germany : €3,15 ; France :  €3,15 ; Spain:  €3,15 ; Italy :  €3,15 ; Japan : ¥ 398 ; Canada : CDN$ 4.11 ; Brazil : R$ 8,04

FerrerMontjuich

Francisco Ferrer y Guardia (1859 –1909), anarchist, internationally renowned educationalist and founder of the rationalist ‘Modern School’ (La Escuela Moderna), was arrested in September 1909 in the wake of the popular and violent protests in Catalonia against Spain’s highly unpopular war against Moroccan tribesmen. The events of that week in July 1909 came to be known as the ‘Tragic Week’ (La Semana Tragica) for which the Spanish government and Catholic Church selected their most hated enemy, Francisco Ferrer, as the scapegoat — ‘the author in chief of the popular rebellion”. Within a month he had faced a mock military trial – a drumhead court martial – and on October 13 he was escorted to the ‘ditch of many sighs’ in Montjuich Castle and executed by a firing squad.

FerrerCover2This account of the life and death of Francisco Ferrer Guardia (now available as a Kindle volume) was written by William Archer for the October and November issues of McClure’s Magazine for 1910. Archer, a freelance journalist, had been commissioned by the magazine editor to go to Spain to find new material on the Ferrer case, as public interest in the affair had been revived. During his stay in Spain, Archer was able to interview Ferrer’s family and friends, as well as his opponents. He was also able to consult the many new books on the Tragic Week that had, at the time, just been published, and the official trial report, Juicio Ordinario Seguido … contra Francisco Ferrer Guardia. It is therefore to Archer’s credit, that on his return from Spain, he was able to write a very fine and well-documented article.

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HIGH TREASON The Plot Against the People, Albert E. Kahn — BOOK 2 — ROGUE’S GALLERY: 5 — ‘The Real Old Times

 Book, Power elites and brokers, Reportage, USA  1 Response »
Apr 162013
 
ColonelCForbesforbes

Charles Robert Forbes (1878 -1952) — First Director of the U.S. Veterans’ Bureau

V — I. “The Real Old Times”

One month after the inauguration of President Harding, a certain Colonel Charles R. Forbes showed up in the nation’s capitol. He was a ruddy-faced, hard-drinking, swaggering adventurer, with a penchant for spinning extravagant yarns and an easy way with members of the opposite sex. During the war he had been decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Medal. His chequered career had also included desertion from the U. S. Army, crooked ward politics on the West Coast, shady operations as a business contractor, and several years of lucrative underhand dealings as a public official in the Philippine Islands.

The reason Colonel Forbes came to Washington in the early spring of 1921 was that President Harding himself had summoned him . . .

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Stardust and Coaldust – A Miner’s Mahabarata – the memoirs of Geordie miner David ‘Dave’ John Douglass — Kindle editions

 Anarchism in Britain, English radicals, Historical Memory, Reportage, Trade union activism  Comments Off on Stardust and Coaldust – A Miner’s Mahabarata – the memoirs of Geordie miner David ‘Dave’ John Douglass — Kindle editions
Apr 152013
 

GeordiesCoverWheelCover1GhostCoverGEORDIES — WA MENTAL, is the first volume in the autobiographical trilogy (Stardust and Coaldust) of David John Douglass, a coalminer for 40 years. It tells the fascinating story of the radicalisation of a working-class Geordie ‘baby-boomer’ during the first twenty years of his life and provides a unique and valuable insight into the political and cultural movements of the 1960s.

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HIGH TREASON The Plot Against the People, Albert E. Kahn — BOOK 2 — LOOTING THE LAND: 4 — INCREDIBLE ERA

 Book, Crime, Politics, Power elites and brokers, Reportage, USA  2 Responses »
Apr 092013
 

       For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear- nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to the Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the tickertape and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair!  

President Franklin D. Roosevelt
October 31, 1936
Warren_G_Harding

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923), the 29th President of the United States (1921–1923)

I. The Making of a President

The Republican National Convention, which took place in June 1920 in Chicago, Illinois, was a most extraordinary affair.

The Presidency was for sale,” writes Karl Schriftgiesser in This Was Normalcy, “The city of Chicago, never averse to monetary indecencies, was jam-packed with frenzied bidders, their pockets bulging with money with which to buy the prize. The Coliseum became a market place, crowded with stock gamblers, oil promoters, mining magnates, munition makers, sports promoters, and soap makers . . . The lobbies and rooms of the Loop hotels were in a turmoil as the potential buyers of office scurried about lining up their supporters, making their deals, issuing furtive orders, passing out secret funds.”

HarryFordSinclair

Harry Ford Sinclair, head of Sinclair Oil Company

Among the captains of industry and finance who had flocked into the Windy City to make sure the Republican Presidential candidate was a man to their taste were Harry F. Sinclair, head of the Sinclair Oil Company, who had already invested $75,000 in the Republican campaign and was to put up another $185,000 before the campaign was over; Judge Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of the Board of Directors of U.S. Steel, whose name had figured prominently in the smashing of the 1919 steel strike; Samuel M. Vauclain,  president of the Baldwin Locomotive Company; Thomas W. Lamont, partner in the firm of J. P. Morgan and Company; Edward L. Doheny, president of the Pan American Petroleum Company; and William Boyce Thompson, the copper magnate, who had recently returned from Soviet Russia, where as head of the American Red Cross mission he had staked $1,000,000 of his own money  in an effort to stem the tide of the Russian Revolution.

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HIGH TREASON The Plot Against the People, Albert E. Kahn — 3: BALANCE SHEET

 Anarchism in the USA, Reportage, repression, World War 1  4 Responses »
Apr 022013
 

DownwithBolshiesTHE postwar wave of reaction in the United States cost the American people many of their most cherished democratic rights. It fomented nationwide intolerance, hysteria, hatred and fear. Thousands of innocent persons had been arrested, jailed and tortured. Scores had died in labor struggles, lynchings and race riots. Never before had terror and repression been so widespread in the nation. What were the causes behind this “foulest page in American history?”

Federal authorities explained the Palmer raids and other postwar repressions as necessary measures to protect the nation against a “Communist plot” to overthrow the United States Government.

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HIGH TREASON The Plot Against the People, Albert E. Kahn — 2: — DARK TIDE

 Anarchism in the USA, Reportage, repression, World War 1  4 Responses »
Mar 292013
 

Mr. Chairman, the spectre of Bolshevism is haunting the world. Everybody – statesman, businessman, preacher, plutocrat, newspaper editor ­– keeps on warning the world that it is about to be destroyed by Bolshevism . . . But the worst of it is that every movement, every new idea, every new suggestion, every new thought that is advanced, is immediately denounced as Bolshevism. It is not necessary to argue anymore with a man who advances a new idea; it is enough to say, “That is Bolshevism”.

Representative Meyer London, Speaking on the floor of the U. S. Congress, February 11, 1919.
LouisFPost

Louis Freeland Post

“AT PRESENT there are signs of an overthrow of our Government as a free government,” Louis Freeland Post, the Assistant U. S. Secretary of Labor, wrote in his diary on New Year’s Day, 1920. “It is going on under cover of a vigorous ‘drive’ against ‘anarchists,’ an ‘anarchist’ being almost anybody who objects to government of the people by Tories and for financial interests . . .”

Seventy-one years old, small and sturdily built, with an unruly black beard and shaggy head of hair, Louis F. Post was a man whose boundless energy and inquiring mind belied his age. During his remarkably varied career, he had been in turn a lawyer, journalist, teacher, lecturer, essayist, historian and politician. A nonconformist in politics and former advocate of the single tax and other reformist movements, Post was a fighting liberal, an inveterate champion of progressive causes.

MitchellPalmer

Attorney General Mitchell Palmer

Panic and hysteria had no appeal for the elderly Assistant Secretary of Labor. As far as Post was concerned, Attorney General Palmer’s crusade to rid America of “Reds” was a “despotic and sordid process.”

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Post found himself in a position to do something about it . . .

In March, John W. Abercrombie, the Solicitor for the Department of Labor who had been serving as the Acting Secretary during Secretary L. B. Wilson’s illness, announced he was taking a leave of absence.

Overnight, Post assumed the authority of Secretary of Labor.

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HIGH TREASON The Plot Against the People, Albert E. Kahn — 1: DAYS OF TERROR: WAR IN PEACE

 Anarchism in the USA, Reportage, repression, Spies and informers, World War 1  4 Responses »
Mar 272013
 
Give me your tired, your poor.
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
From Emma Lazarus’s poem The New Colossus, inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty
Buford1

SS Buford (“The Soviet Ark”)

Shortly before dawn on a chill overcast December morning, one year after the end of the war, a carefully guarded transport vessel lying in the shadow of the guns of Fort Wadsworth lifted anchor and slipped out of New York Harbor under extremely strange and mysterious circumstances. Not even the captain knew where the ship was bound; he was sailing under sealed orders, to remain unopened until he was twenty-four hours at sea. The only persons aware of the ship’s destination were a few highly placed officials of the United States Government.

Radicals Awaiting Deportation

Radicals awaiting deportation

Through the long tense hours of the night a cordon of heavily armed soldiers had stood on guard at the pier. Aboard ship, other soldiers with fixed bayonets patrolled the decks. A special detachment of marines, several agents of the Department of Justice and a top-ranking member of the Military Intelligence Section of the Army General Staff sailed with the vessel. Shortly before departure, revolvers were distributed among the crew . . .

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A Visit To The Island of Sanday by the Revd. Alexander Goodfellow (Kindle edition £1.63)

 Reportage, Scotland, Travel  Comments Off on A Visit To The Island of Sanday by the Revd. Alexander Goodfellow (Kindle edition £1.63)
Jan 292013
 

SandayA VISIT TO THE ISLAND OF SANDAY by the Revd. Alexander Goodfellow. First published 1912 by W. R. Mackintosh, Kirkwall. Second edition published 1978 by Cienfuegos Press,, Over-the-Water, Sanday, Orkney, KW17 2BL. ISBN 978-0-904564-10-5. This eBook edition published 2013 by ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS

UK : £1.63 ; US/India: $2.07 ; Germany : €1,93 ; France : €1,93 ; Spain: €1,93 ; Italy : €1,93 ; Japan : ¥ 226 ; Canada : CDN$ 2,51 ; Brazil : R$ 5,08

Being a new edition of the introduction to Goodfellow’s Church History of Sanday, with some light-hearted illustrations* that have no justification other than serving to stimulate the imagination as to how it might have been. The text is prefaced with a rather tortuous introduction by the publisher, Stuart Christie, relating to current political problems facing Scotland in general, and Orkney and Shetland in particular.

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Dinner with the Tuckers by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn

 Politics by other means, Reportage  Comments Off on Dinner with the Tuckers by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn
Mar 142012
 

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn

In December, 2011 a tiny but wondrous Chicago program of the Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) launched an on-line auction to raise needed cash for its public programming. The Public Square was celebrating its Tenth Anniversary, and Bernardine and I had been on its Advisory Board from the start. We kicked in what money we could, and we donated two items to the auction: choice seats at a Cubs game and an afternoon at beautiful Wrigley Field with Bernardine—an ardent and unruly fan—and dinner for six, cooked by team Ayers/Dohrn. We’ve done the dinner thing two dozen times over the years— for a local baseball camp, a law students’ public interest group, alternative spring break, immigrant rights organizing, and a lot of other worthy work—and we’ve typically raised a few hundred dollars. There were many more attractive items on that year’s list: Alex Kotlowitz was available to edit twenty pages of a non-fiction manuscript, Gordon Quinn to discuss documentary film projects over dinner, and Kevin Coval to write and spit an original poem for the highest bidder.

We paid little attention as the online auction launched and then inched onward—a hundred dollars, two hundred, and then three—even when a right-wing blogger picked it up and began flogging the Illinois Humanities Council for “supporting terrorism” by giving tax-payer money to us. He was a little off on the concept, because we were actually donating money and services to them, not the other way around, but this was a rather typical turn for the fact-free, faith-based blogosphere, so onward and upward, no worries.

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