The Sparks of Rebellion

[R.K. Locke]

Emma Goldman was an anarchist, no?

I agree with your general point though. Anthony Sutton's work on this subject is invaluable, and the interviews with him on YouTube are an excellent way to introduce people to the idea (still shocking to some) that the Cold War was a monumental deceit. He is an engaging speaker and he presents the information in a concise, sober and academic fashion. None of the ranting or histrionics of an Alex Jones type.


I thought that Chris Hedges piece was excellent, even though there are some areas where I disagree with him (his endorsement of different forms of statism, his rejection of 9/11 truth, etc.) There is no question that he is one of the best writers around on the subject of civil liberties and the importance of art and creativity as resistance to tyranny.

[Kenneth Kapel]

IMO Sutton's FDR & Wall Street is all wrong when it comes to the DuPont sponsored coup against FDR After his reelection in 1936 Roosevelt cut spending which caused a recession and as 1940 approached FDR appointed Wall Street GOPS, for example Stimson (Skull & Bones), and "Wild Bill" Donovan to high positions, Stimson was named Secretary of Wall & Donovan was named to head the fledging OSS, also Knox, Landon's 1936 running mate, was named Secretary of the Navy. Some guess that his was done because FDR needed GOP support for America's coming entry into WW2, nonsense, Wall Street loves war, insofar as getting grassroots GOP support that was out of the question and was never an FRD goal. IMO the attempted coup was a warning to FRD do what we want or will we get ride of you at anytime. So FDR virtually abanded "The New Deal" after the 1936 election and appointed members of the unnamed military-industrial to his inner circle. Since that time all Demcratic administrations have been loaded with Wall Street Republicans appointed to key defense, intelligence, and foreign relations positions. Averill Harriman switched from the GOP in 1928 to Democrat and was from 1933 to just before his death a key Democratic foreign policy advisor. He and Prescott Bush were business partners and both were members of "Skull & Bones", aka "The Brotherhood of Death." Our current Secretary of State, John Kerry, is also a member of that secret society, so much for Obama not being a warmonger.

[Charlie Prima]

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[Peter Lemkin]

Emma Goldman

Anarchist, Feminist, Labor Advocate: 1869 - 1940

"…The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism."

Biography

Emma Goldman was born in Kovno, Russia and emigrated to live with a sister in Rochester, New York when she was fifteen. Her family's financial hardships forced her to leave school and work in a factory; her first job in America was as a seamstress in a clothing factory.
Goldman´s political consciousness was shaped by reading (Cherychevsky, Kropotkin), by her first-hand knowledge of miserable working conditions and, most dramatically, by the violent outcome of the 1886 Haymarket demonstrations on behalf of the eight-hour workday at Haymarket Square in Chicago, when, despite an absence of proof, four Anarchists were executed for allegedly causing the deaths of seven policemen. In 1889, Goldman moved to New York where she became a protégée of Johann Most, the editor of an Anarchist paper. From 1906 until 1917, she and her partner, Alexander Berkman, edited and published their own paper, Mother Earth. She wrote five books: Anarchism and Other Essays (1910); Social Significance of the Modern Drama (1914); My Disillusionment in Russia (1923); My Further Disillusionment in Russia (1924); Living My Life (1931).

In her writing and public speaking Goldman was a gadfly. She championed free speech, birth control, women's equality and labor unions. She said: "The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or the woman's right to her soul." Today we take these rights for granted, but a century ago her words challenged the national conscience. Another of her bold statements still resonates today: "…if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it cannot do without that life."

Emma Goldman was arrested and detained several times for her activism, but her most severe punishment--two years in prison--was for obstructing the draft during World War I. In 1919, she and Berkman were deported to Russia where she was able to witness the aftermath of the 1917 Revolution. At odds with Bolshevik dictatorship, she left again in 1921. She was permitted to re-enter the United States on a speaking tour in 1924. Marriage to a Welshman gained her English citizenship, and she lived in London during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Goldman visited Spain several times during the conflict, where she sought refuge for women and children displaced by the war and spoke out against the forces of Fascism. She died in Toronto in 1940 and is buried in Chicago, not far from Haymarket Square.