Browsing Untitled By Tag : activist

From the upcoming "No Gods, No Masters" edited by Daniel Guerin, to be published by AK Press the summer of 1997 Anarchists Behind Bars (Summer 1921) by Gaston Leval Once I discovered that there were so many of our comrades in prison, I arranged, together with the French syndicalist delegates to make overtures to Dzerzhinsky, the People's Commissar for the Interior, implicitly obedient to Lenin. Being wary of me, my fellow delegates chose Joaquin Maurin to speak on behalf of the CNT delegation. Maurin reported back on their first audience. At the sight of the list of the prisoners whose release was being sought, Dzerzhinsky blanched, then went red with fury, arguing that these men were counterrevolutionaries in cahoots with the White general... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

(1918 - 1949) ~ Anarchist Author, Journalist, and Popularizer of Modern Psychology : In April 1945 she was one of the four editors of War Commentary who were tried for incitement to disaffection, but she was acquitted on a legal technicality (a wife cannot conspire with her husband), and when her three comrades were imprisoned she took on the main responsibility for maintaining the paper into the postwar period. (From : Freedom Press.)
• "Towards 1648 a movement sprang up, of the “true levelers” or “Diggers,” which went beyond the demands of even the most extreme of the Levelers. They saw that nothing, short of direct action, would give back to the peasants the lands they had lost, and eventually they even challenged the right of a few to private property in the land." (From : "Utopias of the English Revolution," by Marie Loui....)
• "For when oppression lies upon brethren by brethren, that is no Commonwealth’s government, but the kingly government still; and the mystery of iniquity hath taken that peace-maker’s name to be a cloak to hide his covetousness, pride, and oppression under." (From : "Utopias of the English Revolution," by Marie Loui....)
• "Thomas More, and most Utopian writers after him, had abolished private property because they feared its corrupting influence and saw in it the greatest danger to the unity of the state." (From : "Utopias of the English Revolution," by Marie Loui....)

(1928 - ) ~ Popluar Modern American Anarchist Author, Linguist, Scientist, and Historian : Though his stance on these issues is that of an admitted anarchist/libertarian, Noam Chomsky prefers to act as an analyst and critic of the state rather than a social theorist.... Chomsky continues to teach at MIT, where he holds an endowed chair in linguistics. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "Neoliberal doctrines, whatever one thinks of them, undermine education and health, increase inequality, and reduce labor's share of income; that much is not serously in doubt." (From : "Profit Over People," written by Noam Chomsky, pag....)
• "The decisions reached by the directors of GE affect the general society substiantially, but citizens play no role in them, as a matter of principle." (From : "Profit Over People", by Noam Chomsky, page 132, c....)
• "The enormous public relations industry, from its origins early in this century, has been dedicated to the "control of the public mind," as business leaders described the task. And they acted on their words, surely one of the central themes of modern history." (From : "Profit Over People," by Noam Chomsky, page 45, ch....)

This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author. GREEN PERSPECTIVES Newsletter of the Green Program Project A LEFT GREEN PERIODICAL P.O. Box 111 Burlington, VT 05402 No. 6, May 1988 Price:$1.50 The Crisis in the Ecology Movement by Murray Bookchin American ecology movements -- and particularly the American Greens -- are faced with a serious crisis of conscience and direction. Will ecologically oriented groups and the Greens become a movement that sees the roots of our ecological dislocations in social dislocations -- notably, in the domination of human by human which has produced the very notion... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

(1890 - 1964) ~ IWW Activist, Founder of the ACLU, and US Communist Party Chairwoman : At the age of 17 she became a full time organizer for the IWW, and was consequently arrested 10 times. Although she was never convicted of any criminal activity, she was forced to leave the IWW in 1916 because of internal conflicts. In 1920 she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union, and began actively supporting Sacco and Vanzetti... (From : Spartacus Educational Bio.)
• "Defense of our civil liberties; for political prisoners; fighting against raids, wholesale arrests, and deportations of thousands of foreign-born workers – these were the big issues of 1918 and 1919. The boss class was terrified by the great Russian Revolution." (From : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 1939.)
• "...how they inspired us, how we revered them. French Communards, Russian revolutionists escaped from Siberia, Germans driven out by Bismarck, Garibaldians in their red shirts, Irish, Polish exiles. Oldtime Americans marching, telling of Haymarket, Homestead, Pullman. Men who knew Marx, Engels, Silvis, Parsons – patriarchs and prophets to us." (From : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 1939.)
• ""The right to assemble; the right to speak" written in dead words in the Bill of Rights was written in live deeds by the people all over the United States." (From : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 1939.)

(1869 - 1948) ~ Socialist Activist who Fought for Indian Independence and Pacifism : A complex man with a controversial legacy, Mohandas Gandhi remains one of the pioneers of civil disobedience as a political weapon and a giant in 20th century anti-colonialism. (From : Center for a Stateless Society.)
• "The ideally nonviolent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least." (From : Gandhi's Wisdom Box (1942), edited by Dewan Ram Pa....)
• "Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny or securing reform by the method of nonresistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in self-suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great and divine law of love. He applies it to all the problems that trouble mankind." (From : "A Letter to a Hindu: The Subjection of India- Its....)
• "...the shape of reproduction on that sacred soil of gun factories and the hateful industrialism which has reduced the people of Europe to a state of slavery, and all but stifled among them the best instincts which are the heritage of the human family." (From : "A Letter to a Hindu: The Subjection of India- Its....)

(1911 - 1972) ~ American Writer, Critic, Psychotherapist, and Anarchist Philosopher : As the movement became the Movement and shifted to a struggle between the Old Left and the New Left, Goodman remained unapologetically free. Many of his former followers abandoned him as he refused to offer a blueprint for building structures for the future, preferring the formulation of here, now, next. (From : Fitzgerald Bio.)
• "There cannot be a history of anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of things called "anarchist." It is always a continual coping with the next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms are not lost and do not turn into the opposite, as free enterprise turned into wage-slavery and monopoly capitalism, or the independent judiciary turned into a monopoly of courts, cops, and lawyers, or free education turned into School Systems." (From : "The black flag of anarchism," by Paul Goodman.)
• "As our families are, the children in both their present satisfaction and the free growth of their powers, are certainly crushed, thwarted, pushed, hurt, and misled by their hostile and doting grown-ups. Frankly, I doubt that you can find one child in a dozen who is not being seriously injured, in quite definite and tangible ways, by his family." (From : "The Children and Psychology," by Paul Goodman.)
• "Anarchism is grounded in a rather definite proposition: that valuable behavior occurs only by the free and direct response of individuals or voluntary groups to the conditions presented by the historical environment. It claims that in most human affairs, whether political, economic, military, religious, moral, pedagogic, or cultural, more harm than good results from coercion, top-down direction, central authority, bureaucracy, jails, conscription, states, pre-ordained standardization, excessive planning, etc." (From : "The black flag of anarchism," by Paul Goodman.)

Note: This piece was printed in Alternative Forum, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall, 1991 INTELLIGENTSIA AND THE NEW INTELLECTUALS By Murray Bookchin Editorial Introduction: The following lecture was delivered as the opening address at the fourth continental Youth Greens conference that took place on the campus of Goddard College in Vermont on July 27,1990 The social theorist Murray Bookchin, whose work on ecology began with an article on the chemical additives in food in 1952, is a long-standing activist in the ecology movement and the author of several books, including The Ecology of Freedom, Remaking Society and The Philosophy of Social Ecology. In many ways, this confrontational and thought-provoking address expresses some of the most difficult prob... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

(1842 - 1921) ~ Russian Father of Anarcho-Communism : As anarchism's most important philosophers he was in great demand as a writer and contributed to the journals edited by Benjamin Tucker (Liberty), Albert Parsons (Alarm) and Johann Most (Freiheit). Tucker praised Kropotkin's publication as "the most scholarly anarchist journal in existence." (From : Spartacus Educational Bio.)
• "The communes of the next revolution will proclaim and establish their independence by direct socialist revolutionary action, abolishing private property. When the revolutionary situation ripens, which may happen any day, and governments are swept away by the people, when the middle-class camp, which only exists by state protection, is thus thrown into disorder, the insurgent people will not wait until some new government decrees, in its marvelous wisdom, a few economic reforms." (From : "The Commune of Paris," by Peter Kropotkin, Freedo....)
• "ANARCHISM, the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being." (From : "Anarchism," by Peter Kropotkin, from the Encyclop....)
• "The fatherland does not exist.... What fatherland can the international banker and the rag-picker have in common?" (From : "The Conquest of Bread," by Peter Kropotkin, 1906.)

(1839 - 1893) ~ Anarchist Writer for the Black International : His career as a participant in the labor movement grew out of his reflections on the Pittsburgh riots during the 1877 railroad strike, but before Haymarket had swung over to the extreme left position of the anarchists and mutualists, impressed with the possibilities of cooperation in economics. (From : James Martin Bio.)
• "Let us beware the militant assumption that man exists for the State, and trust to theoretical brakes to check the momentum of a body moving with increasing velocity. The social aggregate is not something over and above the units which constitute it." (From : "The Economics of Anarchy: A Study Of The Industri....)
• "The renaissance of mind from scholastic tyranny; the revolt of Luther and his followers against mental dictation; the temporary compromise in religious toleration; the insurrection against kingcraft leading in its triumph to the toleration of political opinions; -- have now logically led to an insurrection against economic subjection to the privileges usurped and hotly defended by capital in its alliance with labor..." (From : "The Economics of Anarchy: A Study Of The Industri....)
• "Force, however used, can teach no economic truth, yet events flowing from it often awaken consciousness of what equity demands." (From : "The Economics of Anarchy: A Study Of The Industri....)

(1874 - 1922) ~ Revolutionary Leader of the Mexican, Anarchist Militias : ...an important and influential anarchist whose writings and activities had a crucial impact on the Mexican revolution. The Mexican Liberal Party, headed by Flores Magon, was closely implicated in the industrial strikes at Cananea and Orizaba. (From : Brian Morris Bio.)
• "It was my own good fortune to live for years where we all habitually spake our minds, for we were economically free. It was my subsequent misfortune to be caged for years in business, as conducted in these United States, and to chafe unceasingly at restraints on free speech which apparently my associates took philosophically, as part of the day's work." (From : "Land and Liberty," by Ricardo Flores "Land and Li....)
• "What, then, is the use of Authority? It serves to inculcate respect for the law which, written by the rich and by educated men in the service of the rich, has for its object the guaranteeing them a tranquil possession of their riches and exploitation of human labor." (From : "Land and Liberty," by Ricardo Flores "Land and Li....)
• "The Revolution will be the most serious business we could take in hand. Let us master it as we master other business; eliminating slipshod methods and studying it painstakingly in all its details, that it may be made to yield the best results." (From : "Land and Liberty," by Ricardo Flores "Land and Li....)

(1920 - 1996) ~ British Anarcho-Syndicalist and CNT-FAI Activist during the Spanish Civil War : A lifelong trade unionist he fought Mosley's blackshirts; actively supported the Spanish revolution's anarchist communes and militias and the German anti-Nazi resistance and was a key player in the second world war Cairo mutiny. (From : AInfos.ca Bio.)
• "Nobody is fit to rule anybody else. It is not alleged that Mankind is perfect, or that merely through his/her natural goodness (or lack of same) he/she should (or should not) be permitted to rule. Rule as such causes abuse." (From : "Anarchism: Arguments for and against," by Albert ....)
• "If we accept the principle of a socialized society, and abolish hereditary privilege and dominant classes, the State becomes unnecessary. If the State is retained, unnecessary Government becomes tyranny since the governing body has no other way to maintain its hold." (From : "Anarchism: Arguments for and against," by Albert ....)
• "If Government is the maintenance of privilege and exploitation and inefficiency of distribution, then Anarchy is order." (From : "Anarchism: Arguments for and against," by Albert ....)

(1854 - 1929) ~ British-American Anarchist and Magonista Editor : William C. Owen was a British-born Anarchist who was active in California with Ricardo Flores Magón.
William Charles Owen (1854–1929) was a British–American anarchist best known for his activism during the Mexican Revolution and English-language translations of Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón. (From : Wikipedia.org.)

(1848 - 1887) ~ American Anarchist Leader and Haymarket Martyr : ...Parsons spoke at the laborers demonstration in Haymarket Square on May fourth, 1886. That morning at around 10 a.m. 180 policemen arrived at the scene and told the crowd to disperse. At this point, a bomb was thrown at the police from an alleyway. (From : Evan Kelley Bio.)
• "Thousands of volumes have been written to record the acts of governments; the most trifling amelioration due to law has been recorded; its good effects have been exaggerated, its bad effects passed by in silence. But where is the book recording what has been achieved by free co-operation of well-inspired men?" (From : "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as....)
• "...the very next step to be made by society, as soon as the present regime of property undergoes a modification, will be in a communist sense. We are communists. But our communism is not that of either the Phalanstere or the authoritarian school: it is anarchist communism, communism without government, free communism." (From : "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as....)
• "In the growth of individualism (especially during the last three centuries) we merely see the endeavors of the individual towards emancipating, himself from the steadily growing powers of capital and state. But side by side with this growth we see also, throughout history up to our own times, the latent struggle of the producers of wealth for maintaining the partial communism of old..." (From : "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as....)

(1853 - 1942) ~ IWW Founder, Anarchist Activist, and Labor Organizer : In addition to defending the rights of African-Americans, Lucy spoke out against the repressed status of women in nineteenth century America. Wanting to challenge the notion that women could not be revolutionary, she took a very active, and often militant, role in the labor movement... (From : IWW.org.)
• "I say to the wage class: Think clearly and act quickly, or you are lost. Strike not for a few cents more an hour, because the price of living will be raised faster still, but strike for all you earn, be content with nothing less." (From : "The Principles of Anarchism," by Lucy E. Parsons.)
• "I learned by close study that it made no difference what fair promises a political party, out of power might make to the people in order to secure their confidence, when once securely established in control of the affairs of society that they were after all but human with all the human attributes of the politician." (From : "The Principles of Anarchism," by Lucy E. Parsons.)
• "...in freedom to possess and utilize soil lie social happiness and progress and the death of rent." (From : "The Principles of Anarchism," by Lucy E. Parsons.)

(1855 - 1910) ~ Bohemian Anarchist Historian and Radical Labor Organizer : ...involved in distributing Freiheit published by Johann Most, but became increasingly critical of Most as Social-Revolutionist as opposed to an anarchist. In 1884 he set up the newspaper Rebell and became involved with the Gruppe Autonomie in London. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "In Hannover I heard a socialist speech for the first time. The speaker's views made a deep impression on me.... I could only attend some public meetings every now and again but I felt instinctually drawn to these ideas immediately." (From : "Memoirs Of A Proletarian From The Revolutionary L....)
• "...within these two years, I had become a convinced socialist. Not the type to swear by some prophet or thoughtlessly follow what is preached to him, but the kind of person who, through understanding of his place in nature and society, comes to the understanding of mankind and has taken on the fight of the betterment of mankind as though it was his life's duty." (From : "Memoirs Of A Proletarian From The Revolutionary L....)
• "The first ingredient in the kind of businessman who can "make something of himself" is a healthy portion of selfishness and a lack of morals and ethics. If he possesses these things he will reach success; without such aspects, he will never achieve success and will be crushed by the competition." (From : "Memoirs Of A Proletarian From The Revolutionary L....)

(1830 - 1905) ~ Exiled Anarchist Geographer, Environmentalist, and Animal Rights Activist : Reclus was also actively involved in a number of societies during this time, including the Freemasons, the Freethinkers, the International Brotherhood of Michael Bakunin, and a number of anarchist cooperatives. In 1864, Elisée and Elie even helped to co-found the first Rochdale-type cooperative in Paris... (From : Samuel Stephenson Bio.)
• "How can a worker, enrolled by you among the ruling class, be the same as before, since now he can speak in terms of equality with the other oppressors?" (From : "Why Anarchists Don't Vote," by Élisée Reclus.)
• "The possession of power has a maddening influence; parliaments have always wrought unhappiness. In ruling assemblies, in a fatal manner, the will prevails of those below the average, both morally and intellectually." (From : "Why Anarchists Don't Vote," by Élisée Reclus.)
• "Everything that can be said about the suffrage may be summed up in a sentence. To vote is to give up your own power. To elect a master or many, for a long or short time, is to resign one's liberty." (From : "Why Anarchists Don't Vote," by Élisée Reclus.)

(1872 - 1970) ~ British Mathematician with a Socialist, Pacifist, Freethinker's Ideology : Russell's external career has been checkered. The descendant of one of the great families of the Whig aristocracy, he has always delighted in standing up for his radical convictions with willful stubbornness. In 1916, he was deprived of his lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge, after his pacifist activities had brought him into conflict with the government... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "...if atomic bombs are used on both sides, it is to be expected that all large cities will be completely wiped out..." (From : "The Bomb and Civilization," by Bertrand Russell, ....)
• "Either war or civilization must end..." (From : "The Bomb and Civilization," by Bertrand Russell, ....)
• "It is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the destruction of Hiroshima." (From : "The Bomb and Civilization," by Bertrand Russell, ....)

(1833 - 1919) ~ American Feminist, Physician, Labor Organizer, and Enemy of the Death Penalty : Juliet Severance was an American physician and feminist of the 19th century. She was one of the first woman physicians of the United States, having graduated in 1858. (From : Wikipedia.)
She was the leader of several Labor organizations. In the biographical dictionary Women of the Century , she is called "a radical of the radicals" and also "a model mother and a housekeeper". (From : Wikipedia.)

(1828 - 1910) ~ Father of Christian Anarchism : In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "If, in former times, Governments were necessary to defend their people from other people's attacks, now, on the contrary, Governments artificially disturb the peace that exists between the nations, and provoke enmity among them." (From : "Patriotism and Government," by Leo Tolstoy, May 1....)
• "Only by recognizing the land as just such an article of common possession as the sun and air will you be able, without bias and justly, to establish the ownership of land among all men, according to any of the existing projects or according to some new project composed or chosen by you in common." (From : "To the Working People," by Leo Tolstoy, Yasnaya P....)
• "There are people (we ourselves are such) who realize that our Government is very bad, and who struggle against it." (From : "A Letter to Russian Liberals," by Leo Tolstoy, Au....)

(1879 - 1943) ~ IWW Leader and Enemy of Big-Business-Owned, Yellow Unions : Though he started as a Socialist, Tresca died an Anarchist. He edited a number of papers which stood up for workers' rights and denounced the hypocrisy and corruption of those in power. One of his favorite targets was the clergy who he attacked relentlessly. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "It is necessary to see these slaves as I have seen them. Then no one would repeat the lie that work ennobles; rather, as a reproach to capitalism, they would say that work brutalizes and kills." (From : "Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel," by Nunzio Per....)
• "The army is the most monstrous, immoral, degenerate organism of brutal force." (From : "Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel," by Nunzio Per....)
• "Come redeeming socialism, come. Only then will the mine cease to be what it is today, a rich tomb created for men by the cruel and blind improvidence of capitalism." (From : "Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel," by Nunzio Per....)