corrente

“The June issue of Mother Earth appeared draped in black, its cover representing a tomb bearing the inscription: “IN MEMORIAM--AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.” The sombre attire of the magazine was striking and effective. No words could express more eloquently the tragedy that turned America, the erstwhile torch-bearer of freedom, into a grave-digger of her former ideals… a dozen men burst into my office. The leader of the party excitedly cried: “Emma Goldman, you're under arrest! And so is Berkman; where is he?” It was United States Marshal Thomas D. McCarthy. I knew him by sight; of late he had always stationed himself near the platform at our No-Conscription meetings, his whole attitude one of impatient readiness to spring upon the speakers. The newspapers had reported him as saying that he had repeatedly wired Washington for orders to arrest us.

"I hope you will get the medal you crave," I said to him. "Just the same, you might let me see your warrant." Instead he held out a copy of the June Mother Earth and demanded whether I was the author of the No-Conscription article it contained. "Obviously," I answered, "since my name is signed to it. Furthermore, I take the responsibility for everything else in the magazine. But where is your warrant?"
McCarthy declared that no warrant was necessary for us; Mother Earth contained enough treasonable matter to land us in jail for years. He had come to get us and we had better hurry up…”
-Emma Goldman, 1917, via We defy law and presidential orders

Was it Bismarck who said, the only thing that history teaches us is that history teaches us nothing? The unholy godchildren of McCarthy will come for us again if we don’t clean house and send every one of these evolutionary throwbacks to the pond from which they slithered.

Registration ends today in Colorado and Arizona. New Mexico tomorrow. Dunno about your neck of the emerging gulag. After all of the registration deadlines have passed, then all that’s left is getting out the word, getting people to the polls, making sure that Kerry posters and stickers and buttons are out, letters to the editor are out, and speeches are made, bullshit called and votes cast and watched. We don’t want nobody polecattin’ up the polls. After the 3rd, I gotta be sure to clean up posters and etc., too.

Because no matter what, we gotta do what we can to make sure that there is not another “tragedy that turned America, the erstwhile torch-bearer of freedom, into a grave-digger of her former ideals.”

Nowadays the icy hand of fear is kept on our necks, and lying and looting are the ideals of the day. But I seem to recall ideals like equality, liberty, justice, truth, tolerance, harmony, and compassion. Wasn’t there a time these ideals were taken seriously, not just used as empty speech? And wasn’t there a time that some action was being taken by peoples and governments to achieve ideals?

Today, I will try to get three new Dems registered before it’s too late. And I will wear my Kerry buttons with special pride. And I’ll try to practice a few of these ideals in a more open way. Love banishes fear. Hey, it’s a start.