feminist blogs

There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!

—Last words of August Spies (1887-11-11), immigrant, anarchist, and Haymarket martyr

Fellow workers:

Today is May Day, or International Workers’ Day, a holiday created by Chicago workers—most of them anarchists—to honor the memory of the Haymarket martyrs and to celebrate the struggle of workers for freedom, for a better life, and for control over the conditions of their own labor. It was created during the radical phase of the struggle for an eight-hour day: after legislative campaigns by the Knights of Labor and the National Labor Union failed, labor radicals in Chicago — organizers like Albert Parsons, Lucy Parsons, August Spies — declared that workers should take matters into their own hands, in the form of direct action on the shop floor. Workers would no longer try to get an eight-hour day by promising a useful and compliant voter base in return for patronage from politicians. To get an eight-hour shift, workers would make their own: in many shops, workers in the International Working People’s Association would bring their own whistle to work and blow it at the end of an eight hour shift — at which point most or all of the workers on the floor would just get up and just walk off, like the free people they were, whether or not the boss demanded more hours of labor. At the height of the struggle, they organized a General Strike, in defiance of the bosses and in spite of repeated violence from the Law.

Today is also the third annual day of rallies, strikes and marches against the criminalization of immigrant workers. A day which immigrant workers have chosen for actions against the bigotry of nativist bullies, the violence of La Migra, and the political system of international apartheid, as contemptible as it is lethal. A day to proudly proclaim We are not criminals and We are not going anywhere, to demand the only political program that recognizes it — open borders and unconditional amnesty for all undocumented workers.

And it is a joy for me to read that today is also a day of strikes against the bosses’ war in Iraq, which will shut down all the sea ports on the west coast of the United States, as an act of defiance against the State war machine and against the worthless political opportunists who promise to end it while voting, over and over again, to sustain it:

Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers’ Day, to call for an end to the war.

This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union’s Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being wasted and declared May Day a no peace, no work holiday. Angered after supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but who now continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their political power on the docks.

—Jack Heyman, San Francisco Chronicle (2008-04-09): Longshoremen [sic] to close ports on West Coast to protest war

The Longshore workers have the explicit support of postal workers in New York and San Francisco, and I hope this will be only the beginning of ongoing, widespread industrial action to end a war that political action — even after two election cycles, after hundreds of millions of dollars, after countless hours of lobbying and electioneering, after a change in government, and with the backing of an overwhelming supermajority of the populace — has proven completely incapable of ending.

This is May Day as it is and ought to be. A Day of Resistance against the arrogance and power of bosses, bordercrats, bullies, and the Maters of War, who would harass us, intimidate us, silence us, exploit us, beat us, jail us, deport us, extort us, and do anything else it takes to stop us from coming into our own. A day to celebrate workers’ struggles for dignity, and for freedom, through organizing in their own self-interest, through agitating and exhorting for solidarity, and through free acts of worker-led direct action to achieve their goals, marching under the banners of We are all leaders here and Dump the bosses of your back. A day to remember:

There Is Power In A Union

There is power, there is power,
In a band of working folk,
When we stand
Hand in hand.

—Joe Hill (1913)

Radio Bilingüe has a list of immigration marches and rallies across the country today. I plan to be at the mitin in Las Vegas tonight:

• Las Vegas immigrant rights mitin (rally)
• Tonight, May 1, 2008, 7:00 PM
• Federal Courthouse, 333 Las Vegas Blvd S.

Meanwhile, in the news, some useless idiot is wandering around Washington proclaiming Law Day, accosting hundreds of millions of complete strangers to tell them to put on ceremonies in praise of his own power to do the beating, jailing, deporting, etc. In Istanbul, organized workers marched to Taksim Square in defiance of the Turkish government, which has declared their free assembly illegal, and which has deployed government riot cops to attack them with firehoses and tear gas. In Harare, organized workers are holding rallies today to call attention to the devastating effect of the government’s hyperinflationary money monopoly on workers’ wages—and an apparatchik of the Zimbabwean government—one of the most violently anti-worker governments in the world—is taking the opportunity to wear a concerned expression and assure that Government would at all times endeavour to make sure that workplaces were monitored through inspections to minimize hazards that might injure or kill them. (No word yet on whether the hazards the inspectors will be inspecting for include the Zimbabwe Republic Police or the Central Intelligence Organization.) We must never forget what this band of creeps and fools is doing their best to remind us of — that the State is the most deadly weapon of our enemies, and that it is a weapon that we will never be able to wield for ourselves without chaining ourselves to politics and destroying the very things we meant to fight for.

In this season and in these days, in the midst of Babel during its most raucous festival—when so much of what we see and hear are the endless shouts of professional blowhards who know of no form of social change other than political change, and who know of no site of political change other than the gladiatorial arena of electoral politics, and who seem to know of no form of electoral politics other than polling, horse-trading, and endlessly shouting about a series of nomenklatura-contrived issues, which boil down to little more than a media-facilitated exchange of racist, sexist, ageist, and authoritarian barbs among the nomenklatura-approved serious candidates—it’s important to remember that, in spite of all the noise and spectacle, the most significant events for labor and for human freedom are happening in the streets of cities all over the country and all over the world, where workers are organizing among themselves, demanding their rights, fighting for their lives, and defying or simply bypassing the plutocrats and their so-called laws. In the U.S.A., while the punch-drunk establishmentarian labor movement reels from one failure to another, some of the most dynamic and successful labor struggles in the past few years have been fought by a grassroots union organized along syndicalist lines without NLRB recognition, using creative secondary boycott tactics which would be completely illegal if they had submitted to the regulatory patronage of the Wagner-Taft-Hartley system. There is a lesson here—a lesson for workers, for organizers, for agitators, and anti-statists. One we’d do well to remember when confronted by any of the bosses—whether corporate bosses or political, the labor fakirs and the authoritarian thugs styling themselves the vanguard of the working class, the regulators and the deporters and the patronizing friends of labor all:

Dump the Bosses Off Your Back

Are you cold, forelorn, and hungry?
Are there lots of things you lack?
Is your life made up of misery?
Then dump the bosses off your back!

—John Brill (1916)

Happy May Day, y’all.

Elsewhere Today:

• Scott McLemee, Crooked Timber 2008-04-30: All Out for May Day
• Gulf Stream Blues 2008-05-01: Labour Movements Cry Mayday!

Further reading:

• GT 2007-05-01: May Day 2007
• GT 2006-05-01: May Day 2006: A Day of Resistance
• GT 2005-05-01: May Day, May Day
• GT 2004-05-01: Free the Unions (and all political prisoners)!

Today, Tax Day, marked the first public action of the Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left. Here are the flyers we posted today.

How Government Works (#1)	How Government Works (#2)
Taxes Pay For Torture (#1)	Taxes Pay For Torture (#2)
Taxes Pay For War (#1)	Taxes Pay For War (#2)
Your Money Or Your Life!	Your Tax Dollars At Work (#1)
Your Tax Dollars At Work (#2)

Here’s the communiqué I wrote to go along with the flyers, because I like that kind of goofy shit.

Communiqué #1

This is the first communiqué from the Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left.

Today, April 15^th, guerrilla educators affiliated with Southern Nevada ALL struck targets in the streets of southeastern Las Vegas and on the UNLV campus. Flyers—with slogans including Taxes Pay For Torture, Taxes Pay For War, and Your Money Or Your Life,—were raised to reach out to unwilling taxpayers and potential new ALLies, and to raise public consciousness about taxes.

On the filing deadline for 2007’s federal income tax—when countless honest working folks are sick of meddlesome government—when they are tired of being forced to fill out complex forms—and when they are forced to take (on average) 30% of the money that they worked to earn in the previous year and render it as tribute to the United States federal government—against their will, and whether or not they approve of what the government will do with the money—we have a perfect opportunity to spread our message about the violence of government taxation.

Taxes mean violence, both at the point of collection, and at the point of government spending. Collecting taxes is inherently violent because taxpayers are forced to pay the government whether or not they want to, under the threat of government violence. Those who refuse to turn over the money are subjected to government fines, confiscation of their homes and effects, or locked away in prison. It must never be forgotten that anything is funded by taxes could have been funded voluntarily, if enough people could have been convinced to donate the money willingly, or to give it freely in exchange for something that they get in return. In the last analysis, there is no reason to fund a project by taxation unless there is no honest and peaceful way to persuade people to support that project voluntarily. But if there is no honest and peaceful way to fund something, then it should not be funded. Taxation ought to be considered the last resort of the scoundrel and the thug. Morally, there is no difference between tax collection and highway robbery.

But the violence of taxation is even worse than the violence of highway robbery—for while the robber takes your money violently to satisfy his own greed, and then leaves you alone, the tiny handful of people who constitute the the ruling faction of the federal government take your money violently, and then they use that money to fund yet more violence — whether by locking nonviolent drug users away in government prisons, or in the form of police brutality, or in the use of torture by government intelligence agencies in the name of National Security, or in the form of government wars and occupations. The government’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost more than half a trillion dollars, and which cost millions of dollars more with every passing day, and the onlyem> reason that this government can afford to continue with their occupation and their bombings, long after the majority of people in the United States have concluded that the wars are hopeless and fundamentally wrong, is that tiny handful of people have the power to force the millions of us who are against these wars to fund them anyway, against our will and in violation of our own conscience. Taxes pay for police brutality. Taxes pay for torture. Taxes paid for Guantanamo. Taxes paid for Abu Ghraib. Taxes pay for war. And when taxes pay for something, what that really means is that unwilling victims, including you and me, are forced to pay for it even if they don’t think that it is worthwhile. Even when they think that it is abhorrent to their own beliefs.

We believe that there is another way. Southern Nevada ALL is working to raise public awareness, and to work towards a new, consensual society, in which no-one will be forced to pay for torture or war, and in which working folks will be able to keep what they have earned, rather than being forced to turn it over to be used at the whim of the violent minority faction known as the United States federal government. We are starting small, and we are starting here, because that is what we have, and this is where we live. We ask that everyone in Southern Nevada who believes in peace, voluntary co-operation, mutual aid, and individual liberty join us in our struggle.

—ALLy C.J., 15 April 2008.

The Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left can be reached through its website, sonv.libertarianleft.org, or through its e-mail list ALLSouthernNevada.

This is phase 1 (or maybe version 0.1) of organizing an ALL chapter in southern Nevada. Our next step is to meet any new ALLies we may find, start talking about plans, and prepare some more (hopefully eye-catching) flyers, handbills, and pamphlets to spread the word. (For example, distributing some copies of William Gillis’s excellent Market Anarchy zine series, and some other pamphlet-length articles similarly formatted, hopefully to get them circulating amongst local anarchists, libertarians, and peace people.) After that, to begin talking about local networking, informal gatherings, on-the-ground activism, and spinning off affinity groups and longer-term projects. I think that global popular revolution is scheduled for sometime after next March.

If you’re interested, and you’re in (or know people in, or are just interested in) the area of Las Vegas and southern Nevada, consider joining the e-mail list. If you enjoy the flyers, you’re free to take them, modify them as necessary, and re-use them as you see fit.

Onward.

It’s time for our new religion!

I know, I know. I can hear you out there. “Violet, you lazy freak, it was time for our new religion three months ago.” And you’re right. But things happened, and then more things happened, and then, incredibly, even more things happened!

So I’m late.

But better late than never! It’s looking to be a tough spring and summer, and I think we’ll all be needing an imaginary emotional crutch to prop up our tired souls as we make frantic plans to leave the country. Rest assured: our new religion can fill that gaping hole.

If you need a refresher on what we’re doing here, see this and this.

I poured everyone’s suggestions into my personal Metaphysical Particle Accelerator, added a dash of Montebello Long Island Iced Tea Cocktail™, and voilà:

What better way to introduce our new religion than with some nice garish iconography? Follow along with me now as we unpack the many meanings in this lovely image:

Key Figures

The Mope: A cross between a guru and an avatar, the Mope embodies the central elements of the religion. She has eight arms (see below), wears fuzzy purple socks (symbolizing both the Divine Female Intellect and the importance of comfortable footwear), and is carried by her friend Tigger. A Cone of Silence hovers above her head, ready to descend if any unpleasant rap or hip-hop music cranks up.* Each Mope is appointed at God’s discretion, with the only requirements being a) deadness, b) residence in the Smoking Lounge, and c) a fondness for Nerf ball and tequila shots. The current Mope is me, the Ghost of Violet Socks. (*Future Mopes may or may not require the Cone of Silence.)

Tigger: The Mope is carried by her friend Tigger, with whom she has a relationship of mutual respect. In no way whatsoever does the Mope hold dominion over Tigger; indeed, Tigger is totally happy about carrying the Mope on his back and insists that it was his idea. The partnership of the two represents the unity of life on Earth, in which all creatures have a right to live naturally and fulfill their destiny. God has no truck with animal cruelty or none of that crap, and to any humans who think they’re all that and a bag of chips God says, “pipe down you silly apes or I’ll turn this whole thing right over to the dolphins.”

The Pope: See the tiny figure on the rock-cut steps in the background on the right? That’s the Pope (possibly an acronym for Prophet Of Planet Earth, but that could just be a folk etymology). The Pope’s job is to strip naked, coat herself with honey, wait for a bunch of locusts to descend on her nude honey-drenched figure, and then begin prophesying about Many Important Things. The current occupant of this august office is the Rev. B. Dagger Lee.

God: Not pictured.

The Eight Arms of the Mope

The Mope’s arms hold the eight sacred symbols of the religion (going counterclockwise from her first left hand):

1. The Sacramental Cinnamon Roll. The symbol par excellence of the faith. It’s a communion wafer! It’s a metaphysical statement! It’s a breakfast food! The spiral shape reminds us of DNA, while the bread itself represents the fruitfulness of the earth and our duty to share that bounty with everyone. And as the Eternal Bun in the World Oven, the cinnamon roll symbolizes the regenerative power of life itself, with the optional sugar glaze hinting at the tangential male role in reproduction. Indeed, it is believed that God Herself becomes manifest in the pastry during the act of communion.

2. The Sacred Snowshoe. God don’t like no combustion engines and She’s down on the whole pollution scene. The sacred snowshoe reminds us to slide, walk, run, cycle, paddle, or employ any other environmentally-friendly mode of transport to get wherever the hell we’re going. Snowshoes are also the badge of office for priestesses, and are worn by the celebrant during communion.

3. The Stratocaster of Righteousness. The Strat reminds us of God’s injunction to kiss the sky, shake our groove thangs, and otherwise create and celebrate the arts. It also commemorates the brief period in 1966 when Eric Clapton subbed for God while She was having some dental work done.

4. The Holy Rose and Honeysuckle Bouquet, symbolizing the yummiliciousness (to use a formal theological term) of sexual fulfillment. ‘Cause God in Her wisdom wants everybody to have a good time.

5. The Globe of Knowledge, symbolizing science and the duty of all believers to engage in science, read about science, or at least have good feelings about science (a tri-level array of choices also known as the Trinity of Endeavor). The globe also represents the Earth as a living planet, reminding us of our commitment to protect the environment and all its life forms (with the possible exception of The Snake that lives in Dr. Socks’s yard).

6. The Heavenly Chocolate Bar. Another communion food and multivalent symbol of the faith. The sweetness symbolizes all things happy and joyful, while on another level the darkness of the chocolate calls us to contemplate the void of space and the mysterious depths of the universe.

7. The Sacrificial Cigarettes. The open pack of cigarettes represents the Smoking Lounge, where souls go after death to relax, play Nerf ball, and do tequila shots with God until they are ready to take on their next reincarnation. The cigs also come in handy after a session of Rose and Honeysuckle Bouquet (see #4 above), though God doesn’t recommend inhaling unless you’re already a hopeless nicotine addict. During certain ceremonies the cigarettes are lit one by one, placed on the altar to form a hot hot blaze, and then allowed to burn down to smoke and ash. An alternative meditation practice is to blow smoke rings in the shape of the Mope.

8. The Burning Laurel Twigs, also known as the international symbol for human rights. The BLT, which appears on the upraised palm of one of the Mope’s right hands, represents the commitment to global peace and human rights, defined as “the inalienable right of all human beings to equality and freedom from discrimination, regardless of sex, race, class, nationality, ethnicity, color, religion, language, body shape, sexual orientation, gender identification, or any other fricking thing people have used to oppress the crap out of each other.” (Table Talk No. 5468, 2007-10-16, “Commentaries from the Smoking Lounge,” Vol. 847, page 922.)
   
   
   

Communion Comestibles

Pictured below the Mope and Tigger are the approved Communion Comestibles (in addition to the Sacramental Cinnamon Roll). They may be combined in any fashion, but the following are recommended:

High Communion: Grilled Stilton on baguettes, a nice wine, and some dark chocolate.
Low Communion: Chocolate milk and cinnamon buns.
All-Chocolate Communion: The Trinity of Chocolate (dark, milk, and white even though that last one isn’t really a chocolate but some people like it for some reason), with chocolate milk to wash it all down. Not recommended for hyperactive children or persons with blood sugar conditions.

Other Symbolism

The Dog of Goodness. The Dog of Goodness (pictured upper left) is an avatar of God Herself, representing everything good and wonderful and loving in the world. When we look at the Dog of Goodness we should remember the Seven Positive Commandments to be loving, kind, peaceful, generous, honest, just, and tolerant.

The Magical Evil Eye Gaybot Lolkitteh Avatar. The MEEGLA (pictured upper right) was originally conceived by the Rev. (now Pope) B. Dagger Lee, and has since taken on a life of its own with vast and terrifying universal powers. This avatar represents God in her aspect as Avenging Angel, and reminds us of the Seven Negative Commandments not to kill, rape, harm, steal, cheat, oppress, or pollute.

Floating Lamps. The seven floating lamps (pictured at bottom) remind us of the Seven Positive Commandments (see Dog of Goodness above), the Seven Negative Commandments (see Magical Evil Eye above), the Seven Festivals (to be determined), the seven days of the week, and various other things that come in sevens. Like if you bought seven new pairs of socks at the store, that would totally be symbolized by these lamps. The fact that the lamps are floating on sea waves next to a rock in the Himalayas reminds us that, like all religions, this one basically makes no sense.

To Be Determined

Since this is a user-friendly religion, God has decided to leave various details up to you. For example, we still don’t have a name for this thing. Suggestions?

Also, we need to hammer out the details of the Seven Festivals. What about four festivals to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes, plus a Festival of Beasts for animals, a Festival of Chocolate, and a Festival of Sex?

Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!

Today, March 15^th, commemorates the assassination of two tyrants. Today is the 2,051^st anniversary — give or take the relevant calendar adjustments — of the death of Gaius Julius Caesar, the military dictator who butchered his way through Gaul, set fire to Alexandria, and, through years of conquest, perfidy, and proscription, battered and broke every barricade that republican institutions had put in the way of military and executive power, until he finally had himself proclaimed dictator perpetuus, the King of Rome in everything but name. On March 15^th, 44 BCE, a group of republican conspirators, naming themselves the Liberatores, rose up and stabbed Caesar to death on the floor of the Senate. Meanwhile, Thursday, March 13^th, was also the 127^th anniversary (give or take the relevant calendar adjustments), of the death of Czar Alexander II Nikolaevitch, the self-styled Caesar of all the Russias. Alexander was killed by grenades thrown by a group of anarchist conspirators on March 13^th, 1881 C.E., in an act of propaganda by the deed. In honor of the events, the Ministry of Culture in this secessionist republic of one has proclaimed March 15^th Tyrannicide Day (observed), which is kind of like President’s Day, except cooler. Instead of another dull theo-nationalist hymn on the miraculous births of two of the canonized saints of the United States federal government, Tyrannicide Day gives us one day in which we can commemorate the deaths of two tyrants at the hands of their equals — men and women who defied the tyrants’ arbitrary claims to an unchecked authority that they had neither the wisdom, the virtue, nor the right to exercise. Men and women who saw themselves as exercising their equal right of self-defense, by striking down the would-be tyrants just like they would be entitled to strike down any other two-bit thug who tried to kill them, enslave them, or shake them down.

It is worth remembering in these days that the State has always tried to pass off attacks against its own commanding and military forces (Czars, Kings, soldiers in the field, etc.) as acts of terrorism. That is, in fact, what almost every so-called act of terrorism attributed to 19^th century anarchists happened to be: direct attacks on the commanders of the State’s repressive forces. The linguistic bait-and-switch is a way of trying to get moral sympathy on the cheap, in which the combat deaths of trained fighters and commanders are fraudulently passed off, by a professionalized armed faction sanctimoniously playing the victim, as if they were just so many innocent bystanders killed out of the blue. Tyrannicide Day is a day to expose this for the cynical lie that it is. As many reasons as there are to criticize the strategy behind the assassinations of Czars, Princes, and Dictators Perpetual, the fact that the brutal absolute monarch of a monster State lay dead at the end is not among them.

There are in fact lots of good reasons to rule out tyrannicide as a political tactic — after all, these two famous cases each ended a tyrant but not the tyrannical regime; Alexander II was replaced by the even more brutal Alexander III, and Julius Caesar was replaced by his former running-dogs, one of whom would emerge from the abattoir that followed as Augustus Caesar, to begin the long Imperial nightmare in earnest. But it’s important to recognize that these are strategic failures, not moral ones, and what should be celebrated on the Ides of March is not the tyrannicide as a strategy, but rather tyrannicide as a moral fact. Putting a diadem on your head and wrapping yourself in the blood-dyed robes of the State confers neither the virtue, the knowledge, nor the right to rule over anyone, anywhere, for even one second, any more than you had naked and alone. Tyranny is nothing more and nothing less than organized crime executed with a pompous sense of entitlement and a specious justification; the right to self-defense applies every bit as much against the person of some self-proclaimed sovereign as it does against any other two-bit punk who might attack you on the street.

Every victory for human liberation in history — whether against the crowned heads of Europe, the cannibal-empires of modern Fascism and Bolshevism, or the age-old self-perpetuating oligarchies of race and sex — has had these moral insights at its core: the moral right to deal with the princes and potentates of the world as nothing more and nothing less than fellow human beings, to address them as such, to challenge them as such, and — if necessary — to resist them as such.

I have been informed that March 15^th is also commemorated as the International Day Against Police Brutality. Make of that what you will; what the Ministry of Culture will make of it is an excellent opportunity for a program of commemorative song.

Our first piece is a skolion for the Athenian lovers Aristogeiton and Harmodius, who assassinated the tyrant Hipparchus in 514 BCE, using swords they had concealed in ceremonial myrtle wreaths. In the Athenian democracy, the couple were celebrated as martyrs for liberty, and often remembered in hymns and songs sung before banquets. This is Edgar Allan Poe’s 1827 translation of the most famous surviving Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius; feel free to sing it at your Tyrannicide Day holiday dinner:

Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.

Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home
Where Achilles and Diomed rest

In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny’s blood.

Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!

—Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius, trans. Edgar Allan Poe (1827)

Our second piece, in honor of the combined occasions for the day, is one of the most famous outlaw corridos from the south Texas borderlands, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, a cowboy and small-time farmer in Karnes County, Texas, who became a legal cause celebre, and a folk hero for many Tejan@s, after he fought back against a racist sheriff in June 1901. Sheriff W. T. Brack Morris was interrogating Cortez and his brother, and accused them of horse-thieving — based on nothing more than the fact that they did have a horse, and Cortez met the description of the suspect in a recent horse-theft — a suspect who had been described only as a middle-sized Mexican. Morris tried to arrest Cortez; Cortez told him off, and said that Morris had no reason to arrest him. The deputy who was translating mistakenly claimed that Cortez had said No white man can arrest me; that was enough for Morris, who pulled his gun and shot down Cortez’s brother. Cortez fired back, killing Morris, and then fled across the state on foot. He managed to elude capture for ten days, repeatedly making daring and close escapes when surrounded and outnumbered by sheriffs, posses, and the rinches (Texas Rangers). The cops threw his wife, his mother, and his children into jail. Anglo papers called for him to be lynched, and Anglo mobs rioted against Latin@s in Gonzales, Refugio, and Hayes counties. After Cortez was finally captured and put on trial for murder, his supporters organized legal defense campaigns, arguing that Cortez had killed only in to defend himself and his family; eventually they got all but one of the murder convictions reversed on appeal. In 1913, they convinced governor Oscar Colquitt to grant Cortez a conditional pardon. Meanwhile, his fame spread in the countryside through this ballad.

Gregorio Cortez Traditional (1900s–1920s). En el condado de El Carmen miren lo que ha sucedido, murió el Cherife Mayor quedando Román herido. Se anduvieron informando como media hora después supieron que el malhechor era Gregorio Cortez. Decía Gregorio Cortez Con su pistola en la mano: —No siento haberlo matado, lo que siento es a mi hermano.— Soltaron los perroes jaunes pa’ que siguieran la huella, pero alcanzar a Cortez era seguir a una estrella. Tiró con rumbo a Gonzales sin ninguna timidez: —Síganme, rinches cobardes, yo soy Gregorio Cortez.— Y en el condado del Kiansis lo llegaron a alcanzar y a pocos más de trescientos allí les brincó el corral. Decía Gregorio Cortez, con pistola en la mano: —¡Ay, cuánto rinche cobarde para un solo mexicano!— Cuando les brincó el corral, según lo que aquí se dice, se agarraron a balazos y les mató otro cherife. Decían Gregorio Cortez con su alma muy encendida: —No siento haberlo matado, la defensa es permitida. Salió Gregorio Cortez, salió con rumbo a Laredo, no lo quisieron seguir porque le tuvieron miedo. Decían Gregorio Cortez: ¿Pa’ qué se valen de planes? No me pueden agarrar ni con esos perros juanes. Decían los americanos: —Si lo alcanzamos ¿qué hacemos? Si le entramos por derecho muy poquitos volveremos.— Allá por El Encinal, Según lo que aquí se dice, le formaron un corral y les mató otro Cherife. Ya se encontró a una mexicana, le dice con altivez: —Platícame qué hay de nuevo, yo so Gregorio Cortez. —Dicen que por culpa mía han matado mucha gente, pues ya me voy a entregar porque eso no es conveniente.— Venían todos los rinches, por el viento volaban, porque se querían ganar diez mil pesos que les daban. Cuando rodearon la casa Cortez se les presentó: —Por la buena sí me llevan porque de otro modo no. Deciá el Cherife Mayor, como queriendo llorar: —Cortez, entrega tus armas, no te vamos a matar.— Decía Gregorio Cortez, gritaba en alta voz: —Mis armas no las entrego hasta estar en calaboz’.— Ya agarraron a Cortez, ya terminó la cuestión, la probre de su familia lo lleva en el corazón. Ya con ésta me despido a la sombra de un ciprés; aquí se acaba el corrido de don Gregorio Cortez.

Gregorio Cortez Trans. (2008) Charles Johnson. In the county of El Carmen, Look what’s gone down The Big Ol’ Sheriff is dead, Leaving Roman dying on the ground. They walked around asking questions and in half an hour or so they found out the man who did it was Gregorio Cortez. And so said Gregorio Cortez, with his pistol in his hand, I don’t feel sorry that I killed him; what I feel sorry about is my brother. They unleashed the hound dogs, to follow on his trail, but chasing after Cortez was like following a star. He tore off down toward Gonzales Not timid in the least; Come after me, cowardly rinches; I am Gregorio Cortez. And in the county of Kiansis, They showed up to try and grab him, A bit more than three hundred There, and he jumped out of their corral. And so said Gregorio Cortez, With his pistol in his hand: Man, look how many cowardly rinches For just one Mexican! But when he jumped the corral, What they say around here is, The bullets started flying, And he killed them another sheriff. And so said Gregorio Cortez, With his soul burning bright, I don’t feel sorry that I killed him. A man’s got a right to defend his life. Then Gregorio Cortez got away, got away down the way to Laredo; they wouldn’t have wanted to follow, Now he had them scared to. And so said Gregorio Cortez: What’s the good of your plots? You can’t get your hands on me, Not even with those hound dogs. And so said the Americanos: If we catch up to him, what can we do? If we go after him in a straight-up fight, There won’t be many coming back. Out there by El Encinal, What they say around here is, They got him in another corral And he killed them another sheriff. Then he met another Mexican, And he said with some arrogance, What’s the news? Tell me— I am Gregorio Cortez. They say that because of me, They’re killing lots of folks So now I’ll turn myself in, because that ain’t fit at all. Down came all the rinches, Flying through the wind, Because they wanted to get ahold of Ten thousand pesos like they were offered. When they surrounded his house Cortez showed himself to say: You’ll take me in by my own will, And not any other way. And so said the Big Ol’ Sheriff, like he was about to cry: Cortez, hand over your guns, and you won’t have to die. And so said Gregorio Cortez, With a great big yell, I’m not handing my guns over Until you’ve locked me in my cell. And so they took in Cortez, And that’s where it came to an end. His poor family Carry him in their hearts. And with that I’ll say my goodbye In the shade under a cypress; Here I’ll finish off the ballad Of Don Gregorio Cortez.

Thus always to tyrants. Beware the State. Celebrate the Ides of March!

Further reading:

• GT 2007-11-23: The present anarchy of our commerce features a Tyrannicide Day commemorative t-shirt from the Rad Geek People’s Clothing Collective storefront
• GT 2007-03-15: Tyrannicide Day 2007: The fourth annual celebration, with an oration and a commemorative reading from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, a dramatic retelling of the legendary Swiss tyrannicide which, if genuinely historical, was perhaps the most strategically successful tyrannicide in history.
• GT 2006-03-15: Tyrannicide Day ceremonies for 2006: the third annual celebration, with some thoughts on equality and a commemorative reading from The Tragedy [sic] of Julius Caesar.
• GT 2005-03-15: Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!: the second annual celebration, and some thoughts on tyrannicide and terrorism
• GT 2004-03-15: Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!: the first annual celebration. It’s like President’s Day, only cooler.
• Professor Wilkes: Tyrannicide Not Terrorism
• Leo Tolstoy (1900): Thou Shalt Not Kill

In Friday’s Boondocks re-run, Huey Freeman learns a valuable lesson that certain fearless railroading rEVOLutionaries should have figured out a long time ago.

Huey: Huey Freeman, fearless revolutionary, prepares for his next mission of liberation!

Huey: Disguised as a mild-mannered census enumerator, Huey heads off to acquire sensitive information on the enemy.

Huey: Later, that information will be used to strike the final great blow to the evil system of….

Huey: Oh, forget it. There’s no way for a revolutionary to justify a government job.

Caesar: But it was a fine attempt ….

Happy Dead Prez Day.

Here’s a Valentine’s Day treat from self-described thinker Glenn Beck, who offers his insights into gender, sex, love, and marriage:

I’m not a sex expert but I’m — you know, I’m thinking, you know, you’re ugly and, you know, that’s a tough one to overcome especially if you’re a woman. If you’re a guy, that’s not hard to overcome. I’m sorry. That’s just the way the world is. Have you — how many ugly guys have hot wives? Take me, for example. I don’t know why she married — I think it was low self-esteem. I do. No, really I think it was low self-esteem. I got in — you know, you buy when the market is low. You know what I mean? While everybody else is selling, you buy. And I think I got in there right at the right time. Low self-esteem, low, wait a minute, could go a little lower, she might come down to my price. Hang on, OK, sold! Now her self-esteem is going up. And if my income wasn’t going up, she would have ditched me long ago. She would have gone, Wait a minute, I think I was depressed when I married you. I’m just — look. I’m not Tania, but I am a thinker. I’m on to you, Tania!

—Glenn Beck, The Glenn Beck Program (2008-02-14)

(Via Echnide of the Snakes 2008-02-15: The Patriarchal Ode To Sexual Love.)

Further reading:

• GT 2008-01-08: Republicans do it with class.

I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. … I say it as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen. … In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause, and with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances would get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.

—Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was well timed, according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the words Wait! It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This Wait has almost always meant Never. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that justice too long delayed is justice denied.

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, Wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading white and colored; when your first name becomes nigger, your middle name becomes boy (however old you are) and your last name becomes John, and your wife and mother are never given the respected title Mrs.; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask: How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that An unjust law is no law at all. … So I can urge men to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

…

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action; who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and that when they fail to do this they become dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is merely a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-filled positive peace, where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. …

… You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of the extremist. … But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist for love — Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. Was not Amos an extremist for justice — Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ — I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Was not Martin Luther an extremist — Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God. Was not John Bunyan an extremist — I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience. Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist — This nation cannot survive half slave and half free. Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist — We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice—or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

—Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Further reading:

• GT 2006-01-16: MLK Monday #2
• GT 2005-01-17: MLK Monday

To-day — 19 January 2008 — is the 200th birthday of the militant abolitionist, philosopher, and individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner (b. 19 January 1808, Althol, Massachusetts; d. May 14, 1887, Boston, Massachusetts). In honor of his life and work, the Ministry of Culture of this secessionist republic of one has declared that 19 January shall be celebrated as Lysander Spooner Day.

This is from the end of Spooner’s famous pamphlet No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority:

Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

—Lysander Spooner (1870): No Treason No. 6: The Constitution of No Authority

And this is from an earlier number of No Treason:

But to say that the consent of either the strongest party, or the most numerous party, in a nation, is sufficient justification for the establishment or maintenance of a government that shall control the whole nation, does not obviate the difficulty. The question still remains, how comes such a thing as a nation to exist? How do millions of men, scattered over an extensive territory — each gifted by nature with individual freedom; required by the law of nature to call no man, or body of men, his masters; authorized by that law to seek his own happiness in his own way, to do what he will with himself and his property, so long as he does not trespass upon the equal liberty of others; authorized also, by that law, to defend his own rights, and redress his own wrongs; and to go to the assistance and defence of any of his fellow men who may be suffering any kind of injustice — how do millions of such men come to be a nation, in the first place? How is it that each of them comes to be stripped of his natural, God-given rights, and to be incorporated, compressed, compacted, and consolidated into a mass with other men, whom he never saw; with whom he has no contract; and towards many of whom he has no sentiments but fear, hatred, or contempt? How does he become subjected to the control of men like himself, who, by nature, had no authority over him; but who command him to do this, and forbid him to do that, as if they were his sovereigns, and he their subject; and as if their wills and their interests were the only standards of his duties and his rights; and who compel him to submission under peril of confiscation, imprisonment, and death?

Clearly all this is the work of force, or fraud, or both.

By what right, then, did we become a nation? By what right do we continue to be a nation? And by what right do either the strongest, or the most numerous, party, now existing within the territorial limits, called The United States, claim that there really is such a nation as the United States? Certainly they are bound to show the rightful existence of a nation, before they can claim, on that ground, that they themselves have a right to control it; to seize, for their purposes, so much of every man’s property within it, as they may choose; and, at their discretion, to compel any man to risk his own life, or take the lives of other men, for the maintenance of their power.

To speak of either their numbers, or their strength, is not to the purpose. The question is by what right does the nation exist? And by what right are so many atrocities committed by its authority? or for its preservation?

The answer to this question must certainly be, that at least such a nation exists by no right whatever.

We are, therefore, driven to the acknowledgment that nations and governments, if they can rightfully exist at all, can exist only by consent.

—Lysander Spooner (1867): No Treason, no. 1

And this is from A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on His False Inaugural Address, The Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and the Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People, perhaps the finest letter ever written to the President of the United States:

Let me then remind you that justice is an immutable, natural principle; and not anything that can be made, unmade, or altered by any human power.

It is also a subject of science, and is to be learned, like mathematics, or any other science. It does not derive its authority from the commands, will, pleasure, or discretion of any possible combination of men, whether calling themselves a government, or by any other name.

It is also, at all times, and in all places, the supreme law. And being everywhere and always the supreme law, it is necessarily everywhere and always the only law.

Lawmakers, as they call themselves, can add nothing to it, nor take anything from it. Therefore all their laws, as they call them, —- that is, all the laws of their own making, —- have no color of authority or obligation. It is a falsehood to call them laws; for there is nothing in them that either creates men’s duties or rights, or enlightens them as to their duties or rights. There is consequently nothing binding or obligatory about them. And nobody is bound to take the least notice of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpations. If they command men to do justice, they add nothing to men’s obligation to do it, or to any man’s right to enforce it. They are therefore mere idle wind, such as would be commands to consider the day as day, and the night as night. If they command or license any man to do injustice, they are criminal on their face. If they command any man to do anything which justice does not require him to do, they are simple, naked usurpations and tyrannies. If they forbid any man to do anything, which justice could permit him to do, they are criminal invasions of his natural and rightful liberty. In whatever light, therefore, they are viewed, they are utterly destitute of everything like authority or obligation. They are all necessarily either the impudent, fraudulent, and criminal usurpations of tyrants, robbers, and murderers, or the senseless work of ignorant or thoughtless men, who do not know, or certainly do not realize, what they are doing.

—Lysander Spooner (1886): A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on His False Inaugural Address, The Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and the Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People

Further reading:

• Francois Tremblay (2008-01-19): Happy birthday, Lysander Spooner!
• Lysander Spooner (1858): To the Non-Slaveholders of the South: A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery
• Lysander Spooner (1882): A Letter to Thomas F. Bayard, challenging his right — and that of all the other so-called Senators and Representatives in Congress — to exercise any legislative power whatever over the people of the United States

Here’s a choice sample from People’s year-end interview with George and Laura Bush, in which George (who, unlike Mrs. Bush, is apparently so elevated in dignity that he must be referred to in print by a definite description rather than by his proper name) talks about his daughter Jenna’s recent engagement.

Q: Tell us about your future son-in-law, Henry Hager. Did he do right and ask for Jenna’s hand?

The President: He kind of sidled up to me and said, Can I come and see you? We were sitting outside the presidential cabin here, and he professed his love for Jenna and said, would I mind if he married her? And I said, Got a deal. [Laughter] And I’m of the school, once you make the sale, move on. But he had some other points he wanted [to make]. He wanted to talk about how he would be financially responsible.

—People Magazine (2007-12-31): We’ve grown stronger

(Via Jessica Valenti @ The Nation Blog 2008-01-03: The Daddy State? No Thanks.)

Happy holidays, y’all. I hope that yours are full of light, and warmth, and fellowship.

(Photoshopping thanks to lowercase liberty 2005-12-25.)