Have glazed the snow & clothed the trees with ice,
While slant sun of February pour
Into the bowers a flood of light.
— William Cullen Bryant, "A Winter Place"
Web page updated, more or less, buncha stuff,
http://www.recollectionbooks.com/bleed/0206.htm
Excerpts,
JOHN HENRY MACKAY
German-Scottish libertarian anarchist, gay novelist.
SETSBUN, or 'Bean Throwing Festival' (a moveable feast):
drives out evil & celebrates the coming of spring; fish
heads & pointy sticks hung in doors to see off & put out the
eyes of devils; beans thrown into room corners to chase
stagnant spirits from the house.
____________________________________________
1564 -- Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) lives. Elizabethan
poet, dramatist, & William Shakespeare's predecessor in English
drama, whose reputation in his lifetime wasn't as good as Shakespeare's.
Brawler, dramatist, & poet Marlowe was killed in a tavern broil,
but Raymond Chandler resurrected him in Los Angeles (The Big
Sleep; The Long Goodbye, etc.) for other barbecues.
1694 -- Brazil: Destruction of the Mocambo de Macacos
in the last expedition of the Quilombo de Palmares.
Flames devour the capital of Palmares. From the
distant city of Porto Calvo, the huge bonfire can be
seen burning throughout the night.
Burn even the memory of it...
— Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire: Genesis, p274
1788 -- Australia: First women convicts come ashore — there follows
a "scene of debauchery & riot". Hasn't subsided yet.
1829 -- Beginning date of Jorge Luis Borges story
"The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz".
1864 -- Gay individualist anarchist novelist/poet
John Henry Mackay lives. As noted in the Encyclopedia
Britannica, he is instrumental in making prominent the
writings of Max Stirner's anarchism.
Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, & war & murder's endless rage."
0, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven...
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/StJohnMackay.htm
1872: Italy: Luigi Bertoni (1872-1947) lives. Untiring publisher of the bilingual newspaper "Le Reveil anarchiste" for 47 years.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/BertoniLuigi.htm
1919 -- US: Seattle General Strike begins, 10am. Shipyard strike
of 32,000 workers sparks General Strike as workers take control
of the city for a week. Crime drops dramatically.
It is this sort of 'wildcat' activism which leads the
Postmaster General, in the 30s, to refer to the US
as being comprised of these
"47 states & the Soviet of Washington".
Harvey O'Connor's sympathetic Revolution in Seattle
remains the best book on this event. Originally published
by Monthly Review Press; reprinted, with new introduction
by BleedMeister, by Left Bank Books.
See also Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States.
http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/
http://struggle.ws/hist_texts/seattle1919_p2.html
1935 -- Who Owns You?: The game of "Monopoly" invented (more or less).
The game of monopoly is one of accumulation, making it perfect
for our times. The aim is for each player to make profits through
the sale of a single commodity — land — & to expand their empire.
In real life one single commodity generates all profits — our labor
power. Since labor power cannot be separated from people, we
are literally bought & sold in the market place. To prevent
stagnation, capitalism must constantly expand. Thus we must also
consume as well as produce.
1941 -- France: Maximilien Luce, 82, dies. French painter &
engraver. A reader of Jean Grave's "La révolte", & eventually
his friend. In 1887, Pissaro, Seurat & Signac inducted him into
their group of neo-impressionists.
During the repression of 1894 Luce was imprisoned as a
"dangerous anarchist" whose drawings were judged
"inciting people to revolt".
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/02ref.htm#6/1941
1943 -- US: Government of "freedom & liberty for all"
requires the 110,000 Japanese-Americans imprisoned in
internment camps to answer loyalty surveys.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/02ref.htm#6/1943
1947 -- US: Seattle restaurateur Ivar Haglund eats pancakes
out on the street in the midst of a tank car spill of corn syrup.
1951 -- France: Marcelino Massana arrested in Toulouse.
Massana's arrest was a typical example of the willingness of the
French carabineros to work with their fascist counterparts in
Interpol. Spain demanded his extradition for "crimes" in Spain,
but a court refused.
Massana is one of the great anti-Franco guerrillas, on a par
with Francisco Sabaté, Vila Capdevila & Facerías.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/02ref.htm#06/1951
1960 -- ¶ Poet John Ciardi in the Saturday Review publishes
the critical "Epitaph for the Dead Beats" which accuses the Beats
of being anti-intellectual.
1973 -- US: 200 American Indian Movement protesters clash
with police for three days in Custer (!), South Dakota, over the
murder of Wesley Bad Heart; 37 arrested.
1976 -- Canada: Native American activist Leonard Peltier
is captured &, on the basis of fictitious affidavits generated
by the FBI, is later extradited to the US. Federal prosecutors
later admit they don't have a clue who committed the crime
they convicted Peltier for. He remains in prison to this day.
1996 --
US: Government says it shipped
plutonium to 39 countries over the last
59 years (including Israel, South
Africa, Iran & Iraq).
2002 -- US: Secretary of State Powell tells Congress there must
be a "regime change in Iraq, & the US may have to do it alone".
Congress laps it up.
2003 -- North Korea: Government says it is entitled to make a
preemptive attack on the US (this follows the rightwing Bush
administration's declaration it will attack any country it
deems fit for destruction).
2004 -- Walter Morrison MBE, Scottish community activist in Glasgow,
dies. Miltant, active in the anti-nuclear Scottish Committee of 100.
A week after the scot Stuart Christie was arrested in
Spain in 1964, having been caught playing a part in a plot to
assassinate the country's dictator, General Franco, Morrison
hitched-hiked from Glasgow to London to hold a fast & a
picket the Spanish embassy (having first telephoned
Scotland Yard to ask permission). No sooner had he settled
down on the pavement when a police van drew up & four
policemen jumped out, bundled him into the van & drove to
an unidentified London police station.
http://libcom.org/history/morrison-walter-1924-2004
____________________________
"Many say that millions would die if the present
techno-global fealty to work & the commodity
were scrapped. But this overlooks many
potentialities. For example, consider the vast
numbers of people who would be freed from
manipulative, parasitic, destructive pursuits for
those of creativity, health & liberty."
— John Zerzan
____________________________
— anti-CopyRite 1997-3000, more or less
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