Living My Life by Emma Goldman Volume one New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1931. Chapter 3 Helen Ninkin was away at work. Anna was out of a job just then. She prepared tea, and we sat down to talk. Berkman inquired about my plans for work, for activity in the movement. Would I like to visit the Freiheit office? Could he be of help in any way? He was free to take me about, he said; he had left his job after a fight with the foreman. "A slave-driver," he commented; "he never dared drive me, but it was my duty to stand up for the others in the shop." It was rather slack now in the cigar-making trade, he informed us, but as an anarchist he could not stop to consider his own job. Nothing personal mattered. Only the Cause mattered. Fighting injustice and exploitation mattered. How strong he was, I thought; how wonderful in his revolutionary zeal! Just like our mar...
Ever since the beginning of the European conflagration, the whole human race almost has fallen into the deathly grip of the war anesthesis, overcome by the mad teaming fumes of a blood soaked chloroform, which has obscured its vision and paralyzed its heart. Indeed, with the exception of some savage tribes, who know nothing of Christian religion or of brotherly love, and who also know nothing of dreadnaughts, submarines, munition manufacture and war loans, the rest of the race is under this terrible narcosis. The human mind seems to be conscious of but one thing, murderous speculation. Our whole civilization, our entire culture is concentrated in the mad demand for the most perfected weapons of slaughter. Ammunition! Ammunition! O, Lord, th... (From : University of Berkeley.)
ALLIES: The fairies of Democracy. BARBARIANS: The other fellows. CONGRESS: The valet of Woodrow the First. CENSORSHIP: The rape of Free Speech. CONSCRIPTION: Free men fighting against their will. CIVILIZATION: In God We Trust. DEMOCRACY: The voice of the Gallery Gods. FREE SPEECH: Say what you please, but keep your mouth shut. HUNS: Loyal patriots from Central Europe. HUMANITY: Treason to government. JUSTICE: Successful target shooting. KAISER: A President's ambition. LIBERTY BOND: A bone from a bonehead. LIBERTY LOAN: The bread line of the Unborn. LOYAL CITIZEN: Deaf, dumb, and blind. MILITARISM: Christianity in action. PATRIOTISM: Hating your neighbor. REGISTRATION: Funeral march of Liber... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Now and After: The ABC of Communist AnarchismWhat is it that every one wants most in life? What do you want most? After all, we are all the same under our skins. Whoever you be - man or woman, rich or poor, aristocrat or tramp, white, yellow, red or black, of whatever land, nationality, or religion - we are all alike in feeling cold and hunger, love and hate; we all fear disaster and disease, and try to keep away from harm and death. What you most want out of life, what you fear most, that also is true, in the main, of your neighbor. Learned men have written big books, many of them, on sociology, psychology, and many other 'ologies', to tell you what you want, but no two of those books ever agree. And yet I think that you know very well without them what you want. They have studied and written and speculated so much about this, for them so difficult a question, that you, the individual, have become entirely lost in their philosophies. And they have at last come to the conclusion...