#Adolph Fischer

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this day, November 11 in 1887, four convicted anarchists, German-American businessman George Engel (b. 1836), German-American printer Adolph Fischer (b. 1858), and American journalists and activists Albert Parsons (b. 1848) and August Spies (b. 1855), were executed as a result of the Haymarket Affair, the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. A fifth conspirator, Louis Lingg (b. 1864) committed suicide in his cell the day before his execution.

The bombing had left one person dead and several workers injured, and ensuing retaliatory gunfire by the police caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians, with dozens of others wounded. The incident was the climax of the social unrest among the working class in America known as the Great Upheaval.

Among supporters of the labor movement, the trial was widely believed to have been unfair, and even a serious miscarriage of justice. The progressive governor of Illinois John Peter Altgeld noted that the state "never discovered who it was that threw the bomb which killed the policeman, and the evidence does not show any connection whatsoever between the defendants and the man who threw it." Albert Parsons and Adolph Fischer were not even present during the bombing. They along with Parson's wife and fellow activist Lucy Parsons (c. 1851–1942) and their two children were at Zepf's Hall nearby and heard the blast. Lucy urged Parsons to flee the city, which he did, eventually laying low in Waukesha, Wisconsin where he worked as a laborer and stayed with the family of Daniel Hoan, the future Socialist mayor of Milwaukee. There he remained until June 21, but afterward turned himself in to stand in solidarity with his comrades who had been arrested.

Lingg, Spies, Fischer, Engel, and Parsons were buried at the German Waldheim Cemetery by what is now the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument. In 1889, a commemorative nine-foot bronze statue of a Chicago policeman by sculptor Johannes Gelert was erected in the middle of Haymarket Square.

The images shown here are from:

The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America by George N. McLean, published in Chicago & Philadelphia by R. G. Badoux & Co. in 1888.

Anarchy and Anarchists by Michael J. Schaack, published in Chicago by F. J. Schulte & Company in 1889.

Twenty-fifth Anniversary, Eleventh of November, Memorial Edition: Souvenir Edition of the Famous Speeches of Our Martyrs published in Chicago by Lucy Parsons in 1912.

View more Milestone Monday posts.

[dailyanarchistposts]

This past International Workers Day, otherwise known as May Day, I attended my local rally. The same old May Day groups were in attendance, Party for Socialist Liberation (PSL), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and a couple other single issue labor groups. The endless tedium of speeches aside, something strange stood out to me. Every group called for left unity in some way or another. “Unite as workers to crush capitalism,” was the exact quote from the young man in running shoes, jeans, and a bright red PSL shirt. I could have spoken up and made a scene, again, but I feel it is more effective to broadly address why this call for left unity is absurd especially considering the Marxist historical revisionism surrounding May Day. The success of May Day was directly because of the anarchist Haymarket Martyrs and the Marxist attempt to ignore this fact is one of the many reasons why left unity is never in the best interest of anarchists.

Before we begin, it is important to go over the events of the Haymarket uprising on May 4th, 1886. The first May Day was called for by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) as the official first day the eight-hour workday in 1886. On May 1st 1886, between 30,000 and 80,000 laborers in Chicago refused to work in support of the eight hour day, which shut down the industrial zones. August Spies, a German-born anarchist and leading contributor to the newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung, was enthused by the unity and relative success of the eight-hour fight.[1] The McCormick Reaper Works’ solution, instead of meeting the demands of the workers, was to hire scabs. On May 3rd, 1886, striking workers from the McCormick Plant asked Spies to come down to the Southwest side of Chicago and give a speech to bolster morale. Minutes into Spies speech, the scabs began filing out of the plant and the McCormick strikers rushed to the gates of the factory. To protect the business and scabs, 200 police officers rushed in and beat the strikers with clubs and shot them with pistols. According to Spies, 6 strikers were killed including those that were shot in the back as they fled. Spies knew that the battle had been lost and returned to his newspaper office with the sound of screams and pistol fire still ringing in his ear.

That night, August Spies rushed into print several thousand leaflets urging workingmen to come to a meeting the next day, May 4th, at Haymarket Square.[2] The next day, the anarchists August Spies, Albert Parsons, and the Rev. Samuel Fielden spoke to a crowd estimated variously between 600 and 3,000. At around 10:30 PM as Fielden spoke, the police showed up despite the peaceful nature of the crowd. As they ordered the crowd to disperse, a bomb was thrown into the advancing officers, killing 6. The Police then opened fire on the anarchists killing 4 and some of the anarchists returned fire killing another police officer. The Police argued it was a conspiracy and eight influential anarchists were arrested, including Spies and Parsons, who were not present but had significant influence in the community. On November 11th 1887, 4 convicted anarchists including Spices, Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engle were hanged. The state executions further enraged the broader community and would be the catalyst for the International Workers Day.

The Haymarket Uprising was internationally significant. During the funeral procession for the anarchists in Chicago, the historian Philip Foner estimates, between 150,000 and 500,000 people lined the streets in support. Both the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor, although initially reluctant, supported the slain anarchists as heroes of labor. The Knights of Labor even published the autobiographies of Parsons, Spies, Fischer, Engle, and the anarchist who killed himself in prison, Oscar Neebe.[3] The London Freedom group argued “No event in the worldwide evolution of the struggle between socialism and the existing order of society has been so important, so significant, as the tragedy of Chicago.”[4] According to the historian Paul Avrich, pamphlets and articles about the case and autobiographies of the martyrs appeared in every language across the world. In Europe, over twenty-four cities boasted sizeable protests in support of the Haymarket Martyrs.[5] Famous anarchists like Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Ricardo Flores Magón all attribute the Haymarket uprising to their radicalization. Moreover, it was not only Europe that celebrated the Haymarket Martyrs. The Times of London reported protests in Cuba, Peru, and Chile.[6] Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was in Mexico on May Day, 1921, and wrote that their May Day was expressly in honor of “the killing of the workers in Chicago for demanding the eight-hour day.”[7] More to this point, during a trip to Mexico in 1939, Oscar Neebe’s grandson was shown a mural by Diego Rivera in the Palace of Justice depicting the Haymarket Martyrs.[8] The international significance of the Haymarket Martyrs was undeniable in the hearts and imagination of all of the Left and is a significant element in the success of May Day.

The success of May Day internationally is thanks to the slain anarchists yet Marxist leadership intentionally omitted the significance of the Haymarket Martyrs to further purge anarchism from the historical record. In 1889, just a few years after the execution, the Marxist International Socialist Congress, who would later form the “Second International,” chose May 1st to celebrate international workers. However, nowhere in the Second International’s proclamation was the slightest mention of anarchism or the Haymarket Martyrs’ sacrifice for the eight-hour workday. The historian Philip Foner in 1969 therefore needed to write an entire book to remind the reader that other than pushing for the eight-hour workday, the secondary purpose of the establishment of International Workers Day on May 1st was to honor the Haymarket Martyrs. He argues “there is little doubt that everyone associated with the resolution passed by the Paris Congress knew of the May 1st demonstrations and strikes for the eight-hour day in 1886 in the United States … and the events associated with the Haymarket tragedy.” [9]

This slight against anarchists should come as no surprise considering the Second International broke with the First International Workingmen’s Association to exclude anarchists. The few anarchist members that refused to leave the Second International were barred from contributing. Member William Morris reveals, “expressions of anarchist ideas were often shouted down, and in one incident Francesco Saverio Merlino faced violence from the other delegates.”[10] The later Soviets were no stranger to historical revisionism either. Whether it is Stalin painting himself into pictures alongside Lenin or more typically painting out figures, like Trotsky, from the historical narrative. Famous member of the Communist Party USA’s central committee and founder of International Publishing, Alexander Trachtenberg, published the definitive “History of May Day” in 1932 and did not mention the word anarchism once.[11] Therefore, the Marxists of the Second international developed the May Day holiday to appropriate the international success of the anarchist Haymarket martyrs, while actively excluding anarchist thought from their sphere of influence.

Rosa Luxemburg also actively excluded mentioning the Haymarket Martyrs, which prominent Social Democrat publications like Jacobin choose to publish to further marginalize anarchist ideas. In 2016, Jacobin magazine published Luxemburg’s “What are the Origins of May Day.” In this article, Luxemburg argued that in 1856, the Australian workers call for complete work stoppages in support for the 8-hour workday influenced the American and then International development of May Day.[12] She claims that the Australians call to action was the primary source of inspiration for The International Workers Congress in 1890. While this is most likely true, she does not mention anarchists at all in her story. Not only did Luxemburg choose to ignore the impact of the Haymarket anarchists, but Jacobin’s intentional publication of her work in 2016 illustrated this same interest in erasure. Therefore, it becomes clear that both the Communists and the contemporary Social Democrats reinterpret history in order to ignore the global impact of anarchism on the working-class.

This active historical revisionism from popular Marxists is what makes May Day speeches calling for “left unity” ridiculous. Let us, for a moment, ignore the legacy of anarchist oppression from the Soviet Union to Cuba. The fact that both the Second International to contemporary Marxists willfully ignore the centrality of anarchism to organized labor and the establishment of the eight-hour workday is ahistorical. The fact that they suppress anarchist history and call for unity on the day that anarchist ancestors gave their lives for labor’s cause is bullshit. The eight-hour work day was a compromise for the abolition of waged labor. Let us not compromise our principles again by unifying with Marxists that work to undermine us at every opportunity.

[1] August Spies, “The Dies are Cast!”Arbeiter-Zeitung (May 1, 1886)

[2] August Spies, “Revenge,” Arbeiter-Zeitung (May 3, 1886)

[3] Philip Foner, “Editor’s Intro” in The Haymarket Autobiographies ed. Philip Foner (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1969), 12.

[4] Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 436.

[5] Philip Foner, May Day (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1986), 45-46.

[6] Foner, May Day, 45-46.

[7] Dave Roediger, “Mother Jones & Haymarket”, in Haymarket Scrapbook ed. Franklin Rosemont, David Roediger (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2011), 213.

[8] Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 436.

[9] Phillip Foner, May Day, 42.

[10] William Morris, “Impressions of the Paris Congress: II,” Marxists.org (Retrieved May 4, 2022) https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1889/commonweal/08-paris-congress.html

[11] Alexander Thrachtenberg, “The History of May Day” Marxist.org (accessed May 5, 2022) https://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/articles/tracht.html

[12] Rosa Luxemburg, “What are the Origins of May Day?” Jacobin, May 1, 2016 (Accessed May 2, 2022) https://jacobinmag.com/2016/05/may-day-rosa-luxemburg-haymarket

[crashnodar]

In quel giorno, anche Chicago partecipò allo sciopero generale, in particolare la fabbrica di mietitrici McCormick. La polizia, chiamata a reprimere l'assembramento, sparò sui manifestanti, uccidendone due e ferendone diversi altri. Per protestare contro la brutalità delle forze dell'ordine, gli anarchici locali organizzarono una manifestazione da tenersi nell'Haymarket Square, la piazza che normalmente ospitava il mercato delle macchine agricole. Questi fatti ebbero il loro culmine il 4 maggio, quando da una traversa fu lanciata una bomba che provocò la morte di sei poliziotti e il ferimento di una cinquantina. A quel punto la polizia sparò sui manifestanti. Nessuno ha mai saputo né il numero delle vittime né chi sia stato a lanciare la bomba. Fu il primo attentato alla dinamite nella storia degli Stati Uniti.

Il 20 agosto 1887 fu emessa la sentenza del tribunale: furono condannati come anarchici otto uomini, sette dei quali a morte.

August Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel e Louis Lingg furono condannati a morte; Oscar W. Neebe a reclusione per 15 anni.

In seguito a pressioni internazionali, la condanna a morte di Fielden e Schwab fu commutata in ergastolo; il cancelliere Otto von Bismarck proibì tutte le manifestazioni in favore degli accusati di Haymarket.

L'11 novembre 1887, i condannati a morte furono tutti impiccati a Chicago. Le ultime parole pronunciate furono:

Spies: «Salute, verrà il giorno in cui il nostro silenzio sarà più forte delle voci che oggi soffocate con la morte!»

Fischer: «Hoch die Anarchie!» (Viva l'anarchia!)

Engel: «Urrà per l'anarchia!»

Parsons, la cui agonia fu terribile, riuscì appena a parlare, perché il boia strinse immediatamente il cappio e fece cadere la trappola. Le sue ultime parole furono queste: «Fate sentire la voce del popolo!»

La data del 1º maggio si diffonde nel mondo

modifica

Nel 1887, l'allora presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America, Grover Cleveland, ritenne che il giorno 1º maggio avrebbe potuto costituire un'opportunità per commemorare i sanguinosi episodi di Chicago. Successivamente, temendo che la commemorazione potesse rafforzare eccessivamente il nascente socialismo, spostò l'oggetto della festività sull'antica Organizzazione dei Cavalieri del Lavoro. Tuttavia, già pochi giorni dopo il sacrificio dei cosiddetti Martiri di Chicago, gli stessi lavoratori della città statunitense tennero un'imponente manifestazione a lutto, prova che le idee socialiste non erano affatto morte.

Le notizie degli eventi tragici di Chicago si estesero anche in altri stati di tutto il continente americano, per poi estendersi anche in Europa. La data del 1º maggio fu adottata ad esempio in Canada, soltanto nel 1894, sebbene il concetto di festa del lavoro sia in questo caso riferita a precedenti marce di lavoratori tenutesi a Toronto e Ottawa nel 1872.

Al Congresso Internazionale di Parigi del 1889, che diede il via alla Seconda Internazionale, il giorno 1º maggio fu dichiarato ufficialmente

[morgue-xiiv]

every lot in FreeSO Has people with the following names

Choekon Deez Nutz

William J. Boekmon

razzle mataz

Lisa Clarke

Darth Vader

pokke them on

goverment name

Sam Fischer

bog swamp

jognthesecond

then check the ban list that says "RomaS" "Adolf Hitelr" "Adolph HOTler" "fourteen ay tee yates" and the nicest sim you ever met.

[jmkartworks]

A Migrant - Acrylic on canvas - 23 x 32 inches.

Jennie Doherty was 30 years old when she sailed out of Belfast Harbor in 1914. She left her mother and father and a few sisters and brothers in tears; they thought they would never see her again. She was on her way to the other side of the world, to faraway Canada, to help two of her older brothers. Earlier they had also left the family crying when they had migrated from Ireland in search of a better life as homesteaders in Alberta Province.

At the outbreak of World War I, the brothers enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and were shipped off to Belgium to fight the German Army. Jenny stayed behind to manage the farm. Before she died in 1967, she was able to return to Ireland to see for the last time her remaining brothers and sisters. Her soldier brothers did not return to Canada. Their bodies, along with those of hundreds of thousands of other young men, are still lying under the muddy fields of Ypres.

Jenny was no match for winters in Alberta. Like many homesteads in western Canada, the Doherty farm fell apart. So she went to work as a maid in a hotel in Vermilion. Benno Fischer, four years younger than she, was one of the owners. My portrait, from an old photograph, shows her on the day they were married. Their daughter, my mother, was born in August, 1918, only five weeks before the Armistice that ended, in H.G. Wells' words, "The war that will end war."

Two days after I was born in June, 1941, Adolph Hitler's armies invaded Russia. Six months later, bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. Today bombs obliterate families in Gaza and Ukraine. Jesus is supposed to have said that the poor are always with us. The rich are with us too, and so are Hitlers. Migrants as well, still searching for better lives.

⁂

More posts on my website: JohnMichaelKeating.com

Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 11.6

Beer Birthdays

John N. Straub (1810)

Fred Abercrombie (1975)

Jason Lavery (1981)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Sally Field; actor (1946)

Mike Nichols; film director, actor (1931)

Adolphe Sax; Belgian saxophone inventor (1814)

John Philip Sousa; composer (1854)

Emma Stone; actor (1988)

Famous Birthdays

Jon Carroll; columnist, humorist (1943)

Ray Conniff; choral director (1916)

"Wild Man" Fischer; songwriter (1944)

Edsel Ford; automobile executive (1893)

Glenn Frey; rock singer, songwriter (1948)

Ethan Hawke; actor (1970)

Stonewall Jackson; pop singer (1932)

Walter Johnson; Washington Senators P (1887)

James Jones; writer (1921)

Cesare Lombroso; founder of criminology (1835)

Taryn Manning; actor, singer (1978)

Nell McAndrew; English model (1973)

James Naismith; basketball inventor (1861)

Thandie Newton; actor (1972)

Noah; ask builder, religious leader

Rebecca Romjin; model, actor (1972)

Harold Ross; writer, editor (1892)

Arturo Sandoval; Cuban jazz trumpeter (1949)

Maria Shriver; television journalist (1955)

Lori Singer; actor (1957)

Pat Tillman; U.S. soldier, killed by friendly fire/Arizona Cardinals S (1976)

George Young; Australian rock guitarist (1947)

[interpretingtexas]

Albert Parsons Martyr of the Haymarket Affair

Engraving of the Haymarket Affair from Harper’s Weekly [source]

Haymarket Square Bombing On May 4th of 1886, a group of labor activists met in Haymarket Square in Chicago to protest abysmal working conditions and petition for legislation protecting workers. At 10:30pm, as the speeches were wrapping up, police began to disperse the crowd. A bomb was thrown into the police formation and confusion and gunfire reigned. Seven policemen and at least 4 protesters were killed and more than a hundred others were wounded. Eight men were eventually arrested and tried for the conspiracy. Four men were hanged, including Albert Richard Parsons, who had spoken earlier that night.

Albert Richard Parsons, c. 1880 [source]

Albert Parsons Parsons was born in Alabama in 1848, but moved to Texas to live with his brother when he was five. When the Civil War broke out, he followed his brother into the Confederate Army, eventually serving in his brother’s brigade as a scout. After the war, he became a Radical Republican, advocating for African-American rights and even traveling around central Texas to registered newly freed slaves to vote. He married a mixed-race woman, Lucy Eldine Parsons, and the couple faced incredible prejudice and violence in Texas. In 1871, the Parsons moved to Chicago to work with the Labor movement. Albert Parsons attempted to run for public office, but had much more success as a union organizer. On May 1st, 1886, Parsons, his wife Lucy, and their children led a march of 80,000 people in support of the eight hour workday. A few days later, violence between police and workers prompted another rally, the May 4th Haymarket Square Affair.

Trial and Execution Parsons was charged in the Affair and gave himself up voluntarily, in solidarity with his fellow protesters. Throughout the trial, Parsons declared that he was innocent, even refusing to ask for mercy from Governor Richard J. Oglesby of Illinois, though Oglesby had commuted the sentences of two of the other men. Parsons was hanged with three other protesters. The four men were buried in the Forest Home/Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park and a monument was later erected. Governor John Peter Altgeld would later pardon the men still living, declaring that “the evidence does not show any connection whatsoever between the defendants and the man who threw [the bomb].”

The execution of August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel on November 11th, 1887. Artist unknown. [source]

[etakeh]

About May Day

Source 

Margaret Killjoy 🏴 @magpiekilljoy

Happy May Day. 

On May 1, 1886, the US had a general strike for the eight-hour work day. In the days that followed, workers were gunned down and fought back.

Anarchists who were central to the planning of the general strike were framed up on bogus charges and convicted--openly--of the crime of being anarchists. Five of them were sentenced to death.

One, Louis Lingg, cheated the hangman by killing himself with a bomb in his cell. Four others went to the gallows while thousands of supporters gathered outside.

Their trial was such an obvious miscarriage of justice that the next governor of Illinois pardoned them--some of them posthumously. But they were not innocent victims of state violence. They were committed and organized revolutionaries who believed in the end of wage labor.

They each spoke passionately before the court, open about what they believed and why they believed it. Most were immigrants to the US, who had arrived believing in the American Dream and soon found conditions no more free than the countries they had left.

Their words and their deaths resonated around the world, leading May 1 to be celebrated as the international labor day.

It's possible it was a coincidence that this general strike was called for May 1, for Beltane, for the day we celebrate the renewal of spring, but it's the kind of coincidence I don't really believe in.

Adolph Fischer, a German immigrant and the editor of a worker's newspaper, said this to the court:

"I was tried here in this room for murder, and I was convicted of Anarchy. I protest against being sentenced to death, because I have not been found guilty of murder.  However, if I am to die on account of being an Anarchist, on account of my love for liberty, fraternity and equality, I will not remonstrate. If death is the penalty for our love of freedom of the human race, then I say openly I have forfeited my life; but a murderer I am not."

Louis Lingg was a bit more forthright:

"Perhaps you think, 'You'll throw no more bombs'; but let me assure you that I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words, and when you shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they will do the bomb throwing! In this hope I say to you: I despise you. I despise your order, your laws, your force-propped authority. Hang me for it!"

The night before he was hanged, the eldest of the martyrs, George Engel, a deeply radical man who ran a mom-and-pop toy shop with his wife, told this to the priest who attended him: "I have no religion but to wrong no man and to do good to everybody."

The movement in Chicago died alongside the martyrs, but it inspired and gave new life to the movement across the world. Their names and words and deeds are remembered, and a worker's holiday was born.

The general strike they helped organize did not overnight win the eight-hour day universally, though did win it for many industries. It took decades before US workers won the right to live one one third of their day in the service to capitalism. There's still more to go.

============================

Other Margaret Killjoy stuff.  Y’all she writes official MTG fiction too.  I love her.

[rvexillology]

flag of the four chicago haymarket defendants executed in this day 133 years ago

from /r/vexillology Top comment: flag in memory of [George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies](https://libcom.org/history/autobiographies-haymarket-martyrs), executed by the state on this day 133 years ago. they were four of the five anarchists convicted without evidence and sentenced to death for the [haymarket affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair), the event honored by the global workers holiday, may day.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Haymarket martyrs

On May 3, Chicago strikers fought with scabs; police killed two strikers; the IWPA called a mass protest against police brutality at Haymarket Square. Here, an unknown person threw a bomb at police, who then shot dead many workers.

The Chicago elite used the clash to crackdown on anarchists. After a blatantly biased trial, eight anarchists were convicted of murder, falsely blamed against all evidence for the bombing.

Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were hanged in 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide instead. Samuel Fielden, Neebe and Michael Schwab got life sentences.

Rebuilding, anarchists and other socialists formed the Labour and Socialist International in 1889. This proclaimed May Day as Workers Day, a global general strike to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs, fight for eight-hours, and build global workers unity.

So May Day began as an example of globalisation-from-below. And it continues to be a rallying point for workers everywhere, facing social and economic injustices 120 years on.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Stephen Millies

Even though Veterans Day is a federal holiday, only 19 percent of workers employed by private business get the day off. Originally called Armistice Day, it marks the end of World War I “at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918.

So why should poor and working people commemorate Nov. 11? Because on Nov. 11, 1831, the liberator Nat Turner was executed. Labor leaders George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons and August Spies were hanged in Chicago’s Cook County Jail on Nov. 11, 1887. The People’s Republic of Angola was born on Nov. 11, 1975.

[kvetchlandia]

Monument to the Haymarket Martyrs, Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Hills, Il

Happy May Day, Comrades.

It’s rather ironic that May Day, International Workers’ Day, is celebrated by unions and working people in virtually every country on the planet other than the United States, where the events leading up to May Day becoming Workers’ Day actually took place.  On May 1,1886, 300,000 workers took part in demonstrations for the 8-hour work day across the United States, with 40,000 demonstrating in Chicago alone.  A continuing general strike took place in several locations, especially Chicago.  On May 3, striking workers confronted scabs crossing the picket line at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company.  Police fired on the union workers, killing 2 men.  Outraged by this act of police violence, a mass rally was called for the following day, May 4, at Chicago’s Haymarket Square.  Although the crowd was so peaceful that Chicago’s mayor, Carter Harrison, who had been observing and was no friend of the workers, left early, the yellow press of the era, foaming at the mouth opponents of workers’ rights, were quickly filled with screaming headlines about rioting workers, which of course never happened.  As police marched forward to disperse the crowd, a crude, homemade bomb was thrown.  No one knows who threw the bomb, but it is very realistically suspected that it was thrown by a police agent provocateur, considering what happened next.  As soon as the bomb exploded, police began firing wildly into the crowd, which was running away from the explosion.  The police fired so wildly that their shots killed many of their cohorts.  There is absolutely no evidence that any shots emerged from the crowd toward the police.   As a result of the cop shooting spree, four demonstrating workers and seven police were killed.  Immediately after the Haymarket demonstration and massacre, the police began a huge anti-union campaign, suppressing strikes and arresting union members, socialists and anarchists.  The police, without warrants, raided the office of the anarchist newspaper, the Arbeiter-Zeitung.  Ultimately, 8 men were charged with murder, August Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Oscar Neebe and Samuel Fielden.  Six of the eight men were immigrants.  Engel, Lingg and Neebe had not even been present at the demonstration, but were known to the police for their militant anarchism.  All eight of the defendants were convicted, including those not even present at the Haymarket rally, and seven were sentenced to death.  Ultimately, four defendants; Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies, were hung.  In 1890, the Second International, choosing the date of the American general strike for the 8-hour workday, declared May 1 as International Workers’ Day.

Because no cemetery in the city of Chicago would bury the judicially murdered Haymarket martyrs, the Waldheim Cemetery (later renamed the Forest Home Cemetery) in nearby Forest Hills, which had a policy of accepting all people in need of burial, without regard to race of creed, became their final resting place.  In 1893, the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument by sculptor Albert Weinert was raised near their graves.  At the base of the monument is the inscription, "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today," August Spies final words, shouted as he approached the gallows.

[lulzyfarm]

re: ‘defund the police’ what does that mean/entail? why is it a demand?

An anon sent in a request for why BLM is calling to defund the police. I’m in a bit of a...work swamp so I’m going to try to tl;dr a lot of it! and edit the post later w/ relevant readings and well... when im not about to short circuit. 

Why? 

More or less, BIPOC/POC are targeted by the police because of race. A lot of ALM/Right-wing pundits assign that BIPOC/POC, in the worst of ways, “deserve” to be policed because of the stereotypes surrounding BIPOC (esp.) communities. These are, imo, largely false justifications because the police state has always existed to attack and control minority groups (Simone Browne writes extensively about technology and race. In short hand, surveillance technology has always been mobilized to target people with darker skin).

(not a grand fan of ACLU but: Why the War on Drugs is the new Jim Crow)... many more .... works that outline why the War on Drugs was, similar to redlining, a target on BIPOC in both limiting socio-economic mobility but also creating a language around drugs that villainises BIPOC. 

The prison industrial complex is exploitative and the police directly contribute to that system. There are many documentaries that surround the nature of exploitation in prisons (eg. 13th, The Twelve Landscapes)

Policing has always been economic strategy. This is bullet mainly about the origins. The current police state is a direct descendent of slavery and maintaining control over former/then slaves. 

Policing is still currently economic and segregative strategy. By targeting marginalised communities, the ability of upwards socio-economic mobility is limited or PERMANENTLY fractured. Red-lining functions similarly and enables the mentality that BIPOC are inherently violent/abject and therefore need to be mediated. 

But what happens if the police are defunded/abolished?

(This is going to be...well..a doozy. I’m going to need to edit it). 

Abolishing the police state does not mean that the good police will be pushed into poverty and forever abject from society...I don;t think abolition is even close to as popular as defunding...which is barely second to simple “reform”. The purpose of abolition is so that the “good meaning police” are moved into community works projects, where communities in need are given the proper resources to mobilize from the abject. Instead of spending literal billions (NYPD example fron June) on policing, this money could be spent on funding schools, public facilities, and other engagement strategy. Historically speaking, when the government puts more money into helping uplift citizens, the means of survival become less volatile and violent. It’s a proactive counter measure, ensuring that each citizen is offered the opportunity of stability that some people are born into. You hear a lot less about violence in communities that aren’t constantly stuck in precarity. 

Brain Ramblings: 

Judith Butler, Isabell Lorey all write frequently about this subject of precarity. Essentially, the limiting of resources, shuttering of social mobility in certain communities creates a seemingly stable state, but only because half the population is constantly at the borderline of poverty/abjection. (uh.....very reductive). Living barely above government aid line is an ultra fragile-ultra precarious life. 

State of Insecurity, Lorey

Really Great interview with Adolph Reed (<3) about why class is equally as important within the dialogue of race. 

Mckenzie Wark on new strains of Capitalism

THE END OF POLICING ... the social media star from Verso... a book launch and discussion 

Obviously reinforcing that these aren’t the “facts facts facts” as Ben Shapiro likes to push! Here’s the thing, facts are manipulated, especially when it’s statistics about race and the racism of the police. People were devastated by Breonna Taylor’s killers not being acquitted, however, the system has always protected police. If the policy instate is to enable racism, it’s not myopic to believe that literal legislation is meant to continue the very devastatingly fruitful prision-industrial complex. 

AUHG 

i feel like i havent sorted much out because the topic is so EXTREMELY dense and i hate to be reductive. Again! I really enjoy publishing multiple cutural, anthro, and political theorists work because having a diverse library of understandings prevents totalitarianism.  (also cited Hannah Ardent previously.. Mill is ok..... But the essence of “think about what you’re told” is there) 

OOP last thing: Someone once very succinctly pointed out that if the image of fascism is limited to Hitler and the Holocaust, we are a doomed society. America’s ultimate weapon is comparison. That’s why we’re kind of resigned/ignorant to the state until there is explicit, gruesome, violence. If we’re told that there is only a WORSE option, then we never think beyond. uhh... Citing Mark Fischer’s Capitalist Realism. The first two chapters are great and touch upon this. 

[hicranizm]

1 Mayıs’ın yaratıcısı olan dört yiğit işçi önderi Albert PERSONS, Adolph FISCHER, George ENGEL ve August SPIES, 1 Mayıs 1886 yılında 8 saatlik iş günü mücadelesinde önderlik yaptıkları için "Amerikan adaleti” tarafından idam edildiler.

Albert PERSONS isimli işçi, özür dileme şartıyla affedileceğinin söylenmesi üzerine, mahkeme heyetinin karşısında tarihe geçecek sözlerini söyledi: "Bütün dünya biliyor suçsuz olduğumu. Eğer asılırsam cani olduğumdan değil, emekçi olduğumdan asılacağım."

ALBERT PERSONS'UN MEKTUBU

Yavrularım, Elveda!!...

“Bu kelimeleri yazarken adlarınızın üstüne gözyaşlarım damlıyor...

Bir daha hiç karşılaşmayacağız. Ah, sevgili çocuklarım, nasıl içten, derinden seviyor sizi babacığınız. Bir gün zaten gidecektim… Ama şimdi daha mutluyum. Babanızla gurur duyabilirsiniz. Bir gün diyeceksiniz ki bizim babamız haklıydı ve gitti.

Sevdiklerimiz için yaşamakla gösteririz sevgimizi ve gerektiğinde sevdiklerimiz için ölmekle de gösterebiliriz sevgimizi... Ben tüm bir insanlık için var olduğumun bilincindeydim.Size de böyle bir misyon emanet ediyorum yavrularım.Kendiniz için değil tüm insanlık için var olun.Mücadeleniz hep haksızlığa uğrayanlar için olsun.Böylece insanlık size minnattar kalacaktır.

Gurur duyabilirsiniz çocuklarım… Babanız haklı bir dava için gidiyor. Hiç bir zaman hayat böyle geldi böyle gidiyor demeyin. Erdemli ve cesaretli olun.

Korkmayın hiçbir zaman! Erdeminiz size cesaret verecektir. İyilikleriniz hiç unutulmayacaktır. Dünya var oldukça geride bıraktığınız şerefli yaşam başkaları tarafından anılacaktı. Anılmayacağını bilseniz bile siz iyilik, doğruluk ve adaletten ayrılmayın.

Sevgili evlatlarım hayattan hiçbir zaman nefret etmeyin. Tanrı bize insanca yaşayalım diye bu dünyayı verdi. Sorumlusunuz yavrularım! Haksızlıkların karşısında durun, sessiz kalmayın.

Benim hayatımı ve doğal olmayan haksız ölümümü başkalarından öğreneceksiniz. Babanız, özgürlük ve mutluluk uğruna gönüllü olarak canını vermiş bir kurbandır.

Size miras olarak şerefli bir ad ve tamamlanacak bir görev bırakıyorum... İnsanları sevin, haksızlık yapmayın, yapana da ses çıkarın!!

Babanız şerefli bir insan. Onun adına örnek olun. Onu koruyun, bu yolda yürüyün. Kendinize karşı doğru olun, o vakit başkalarına karşı sahte olamazsınız. Yaratıcı, uyanık ve neşeli olun...

Çocuklarım, değerli varlıklarım; bu mektubu yalnız sizin için değil, daha doğmamış çocukları için ölen birçok kişinin ölüm yıldönümlerinde de okumanızı istiyorum.

Yavrularım, elveda...”

[paoloxl]

Il biennio 1885/86 fu caratterizzato, soprattutto negli Stati Uniti, da un'intensa mobilitazione operaia che si poneva come obiettivo la conquista della giornata lavorativa di otto ore.

1 maggio 1886: la rivolta di Haymarket

I sindacati americani decisero allora di indire per il primo Maggio '86 uno sciopero generale, che nella sola città di Chicago riunì oltre 50.000 lavoratori. In un clima di tensione, e di numerose provocazioni poliziesche, si susseguirono cortei, comizi ed iniziative varie anche nei giorni successivi alla grande manifestazione. Il 3 di maggio i lavoratori in sciopero di Chicago si ritrovarono all'ingresso della fabbrica di macchine agricole McCormick. La polizia, chiamata a reprimere l'assembramento sparò sui manifestanti uccidendone quattro e ferendone diverse centinaia. Per protestare contro la brutalità delle forze dell'ordine, gli anarchici e i socialisti locali organizzarono una manifestazione da tenersi nell'Haymarket Square, la piazza che normalmente ospitava il mercato delle macchine agricole.

Il giorno successivo circa 2000 persone si radunarono per manifestare pacificamente, ma mentre i leader sindacalisti, Spies, Parsons e Fielden, parlavano alla folla, in un clima carico di tensione, ma fondamentalmente pacifico e tranquillo, i capitani di polizia Bonfield e Ward, a capo di 180 agenti con i manganelli levati, ordinarono di disperdere il presidio. Dopo un momento di silenzio, nel buio della notte si sentì il rumore di passi in fuga. Poi ci fu un lampo e un'esplosione terribile. Qualcuno aveva gettato una bomba. Il poliziotto Mathias J. Degan rimase ucciso.

A quel punto le forze dell'ordine si sentirono legittimate a sparare sulla folla. Sette poliziotti rimasero uccisi da fuoco amico, insieme a 4 manifestanti, mentre decine di persone rimasero ferite, molti delle quali ebbero paura di ricevere cure ospedaliere, temendo l'arresto.

Il giorno dopo, furono arrestati otto leader anarchici e socialisti, accusati di omicidio; si trattava di Albert Parsons, americano, di George Fielden, immigrato inglese, di Oscar Neebe, nato in America da genitori tedeschi, e di cinque immigrati dalla Germania: Adolph Fischer, August Spies, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab e George Engel. Tre degli imputati erano stati oratori al comizio di Haymarket – di cui tutti ricordavano i toni moderati; altri due non c'erano nemmeno andati, gli ultimi tre avevano lasciato la manifestazione prima dello scoppio della bomba.

«I sospetti furono picchiati e sottoposti al terzo grado», scrive Harvey Wish, «persone che non conoscevano il significato di socialismo e anarchismo furono torturate dalla polizia» e «qualche volta corrotte perché testimoniassero per l'accusa».«Fate prima le perquisizioni e poi consultate la legge», disse Julius S. Grinnell, procuratore dello Stato a Chicago, incaricato dell'istruttoria dei casi. John Swinton dichiarò che i lavoratori di New York vivevano «sotto il regno del terrore. Giudici e polizia, corrotti e servi dei monopoli, rastrellavano indiscriminatamente i cittadini e li conducevano in prigione».

In realtà Parsons, convinto quasi all'istante che la bomba era stata lanciata da un agente prezzolato e che egli sarebbe stato uno degli accusati predestinati, riuscì a fuggire nella confusione che seguì alla strage, ma dopo pochi giorni, pur sapendo, come confermò in seguito il governatore dell'Illinois, John P. Altgeld, che si sarebbe trovato di fronte una giuria prevenuta, testimoni falsi e giudici decisi a condannare al capestro, decise comunque di consegnarsi, comparendo improvvisamente in tribunale il primo giorno del processo.

«Mi uccideranno - disse Parsons a chi gli chiese spiegazioni per il suo gesto - ma non potevo restarmene in libertà sapendo che i miei compagni erano stati arrestati e sarebbero stati giustiziati per fatti di cui essi sono colpevoli al pari di me ...» .

Il processo cominciò a luglio; malgrado gli sforzi degli avvocati della difesa, l'accusa, appoggiata dal giudice, portò la discussione su un livello puramente ideologico: fu un processo all'anarchismo, al socialismo e al movimento operaio.

In tribunale non fu portata alcuna prova del collegamento tra gli imputati e il lancio della bomba, ma venne affermato che la persona che aveva lanciato l'ordigno sarebbe stata incitata a farlo dagli imputati, i quali di conseguenza erano da considerarsi responsabili.

Il 19 Agosto, la giuria decise per la condanna a 15 anni di carcere per Neebe, sebbene nessun elemento accusatorio fosse stato trovato nei suoi confronti, e per la morte degli altri sette imputati. La notte prima dell'esecuzione, Lingg si suicidò nella cella inghiottendo una bomba fatta a sigaro. L'11 novembre, Parsons, Engel, Fischer e Spies salirono al patibolo, mentre Samuel Fielden e Michael Schwab, in seguito alla domanda di clemenza, vennero graziati nel1893.

Il 13 Novembre, 200.000 persone parteciparono ai funerali dei cinque martiri del movimento operaio.

Tre anni più tardi, a Parigi, nel corso del congresso fondativo della Seconda internazionale socialista, organizzazione che riuniva i partiti socialisti e i movimenti a tutela dei lavoratori di venti paesi nel mondo, si decise di proclamare, in ricordo del massacro dell'Haymarket square, il primo maggio come Festa internazionale dei lavoratori. Sindacati e partiti aderenti avrebbero dovuto proporre alle singole autorità nazionali una petizione che istituisse per legge la festività.

La prima celebrazione della Festa dei lavoratori si tenne a Roma nel 1890. In quell'occasione la città venne occupata da poliziotti, carabinieri, corpi dell'esercito e squadroni di cavalleria. Circa 200 operai si riunirono a Testaccio ma vennero dispersi dalle forze dell'ordine. Lo stesso accadde ad altri assembramenti in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele e in Porta Trionfale. Fino al maggio 1898, anno in cui il generale Bava Beccaris represse nel sangue i «moti del pane» a Milano, la festa dei lavoratori fu vietata e repressa dalle autorità.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 11 November 1887, four of the Haymarket martyrs were executed in Chicago. They were anarchist labour organisers framed for a bombing by authorities because of their role in the fight for the 8-hour day. The holiday, International Workers Day on May 1 each year, commemorates the martyrs. Lucy Parsons, a formerly-enslaved anarchist activist, and wife of Albert Parsons, one of the martyrs, recalled that day 50 years later: "On that gloomy morning of November 11, 1887, I took our two little children to the jail to bid my beloved husband farewell. I found the jail roped off with heavy cables. Policemen with pistols walked in the enclosure. I asked them to allow us to go to our loved one before they murdered him. They said nothing. Then I said, 'Let these children bid their father goodby, let them receive his blessing. They can do no harm.' In a few minutes a patrol wagon drove up and we were locked up in a police station while the hellish deed was done. Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs but I am still a rebel." The others to be executed were George Engel, Adolph Fischer, August Spies and Louis Lingg, although Lingg cheated the hangman by blowing himself up the previous night. Upon his sentencing, Spies told the court: "if you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labour movement — the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery, the wage slaves, expect salvation — if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand." On the gallows, he said: "There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." More info: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/the-incomplete-true-authentic-and-wonderful-history-of-may-day-peter-linebaugh https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1580024095516068/?type=3