Direct Action.
then text on the practice.
----------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------
x Voltairine De Cleyre
"You can simply pay the fare in a coach to my house, shoot without spending anything. But if the payment of 1000 dollars is a necessary part of its proposal, then I have given you the shot, I'll give the money to the propaganda of the idea of \u200b\u200ba free society in which there have been no murderers or presidents, nor beggars nor senators. " "Direct Action" by Voltairine De Cleyre
From the perspective someone who thinks for himself and be able to discern a path without detours to follow for the progress of humanity, that there is any kind of progress, who, having drawn such a route in mind, has searched for how to teach others see them as he sees himself, who while doing that you have chosen what seemed simple and clear expressions to convey their ideas to others, - for that person appears as a great source of sadness and confusion of spirit that The term "Direct Action" has suddenly become in the minds of the public a narrow meaning at all involved in the words themselves, and certainly never attached by himself or by his comrades of ideas.
However, this is one of the most common tricks that Progress does to those who think themselves to set limits and measurement. Again and again, names, phrases, slogans and tag lines have been placed upside down, upside down and upside down, by occurrences beyond the control of those who used the terms in its original sense, and yet, those who stubbornly have remained in their positions, and insisted on being heard, in the end they found that the period of misunderstanding and prejudice has been but a prelude to a wider research and understanding.
I think this is the case with the present confusion surrounding the term direct action, which through misunderstanding or deliberate distortion of certain journalists in Los Angeles at the time that the McNamaras pleaded guilty, suddenly acquired in the public mind the sense of "force attacks against life and property." This was either very ignorant or very dishonest of the journalists, but has had the effect of awakening the curiosity of many people to know everything you need to do with direct action.
In fact, those who so fervently and condemn folly, will find watching more closely than they themselves have often practiced direct action, and will continue.
Every person who ever thought he had a right to express themselves, and bravely had proceeded to do it, alone or together with others who shared his convictions, has been a practitioner of Direct Action. Some thirty-odd years, I remember the Salvation Army vigorously practiced direct action to maintain the freedom of its members to speak, assemble and pray. Again and again they were arrested, fined and imprisoned, but continued singing, praying and marching until finally compelled their persecutors to let them alone. Industrial Workers today have the same struggle, and a number of cases, have forced officials to let them alone through the same direct tactics.
Each person who has ever planned to do something, and went and did it, or who has submitted a plan to others and to make it won its cooperation with them, without having to go to outside authorities to ask them to please the do for them, has been practicing direct action. All cooperative experiments are essentially direct action.
Everyone once in their life has had to resolve a dispute with another person, and has led directly to the other or others involved to resolve it, either peacefully or otherwise, was a practitioner of direct action . Examples of such actions as are strikes and boycotts, many people will remember the work of housewives in New York who boycotted the butchers, and managed to come down the price of meat in this seems glimpsed boycotts butter direct response to those who set prices for that product.
These actions usually not due to have someone to think too much about the merits of directness or indirectness of the action, but are spontaneous resources of those who feel oppressed by a situation. In other words, everyone is, most of the time, believing in the principle of direct action, and practice. However, most people also practice political action or after [today, legal or reformist, N. T.]. And they are both at the same time, without analysis depth of one or the other. Only a limited number of people who avoid political action in all circumstances, but nobody, nobody at all, it has been so "impossible" to avoid any direct action.
Most thinking people are really opportunists, now perhaps leaning more towards direct action, sometimes to the indirect as a general thing, but actually use both media when the opportunity warrants it. That means that there are those who argue that bringing to power leaders across the score is essentially a stupid thing erroneous, but nevertheless under pressure from special circumstances would consider that the wisest course is to vote for this or that individual for a particular position on that particular occasion. Or there are those who believe that in general, the wisest way for people to get what they want is for the indirect method of voting for someone to legalize what they want, but who nevertheless occasionally and in exceptional circumstances recommend a strike , and a strike, as I have said, is direct action. Or they can do as the agitators of the Socialist Party (which today mostly claim to be anti-direct action) did last summer, when the police were interfering with their actions. They went to places acts as a force, ready to make speeches or yes, and managed to beat back the police. And while that was not something logical on their part, the opposition in this way the legal executors of the will of the majority, was a perfect and successful example of direct action.
Those who, for the essence of their belief, are committed to direct action only - who? Well, non-resistant, precisely those who do not believe for nothing in the violence! Now, please do not make the mistake to infer from this that I say that direct action means non-resistance, none of that. Direct action may be the end of violence, or may be as peaceful as the still waters of the stream of Shiloa. What I mean is that non-resistant can only believe in direct action and political action ever. Because the base of all political action is the coherción, even though the State does good things ultimately depends on the club, gun or imprisonment for possession of the implement. Today
day, every school child in America has been informed of the direct action of certain non-resistant by history classes. The case immediately everyone remembers is that of the early Quakers who came to Massachusetts. The Puritans Quakers were accused of "disturbing the world with their preaching for peace." They (the Quakers) refused to pay taxes on the church, refused to bear arms, and refused to swear allegiance to any government (and in doing so became direct activists, or what we might call negative direct activists .) So The Puritans, with practitioners of political action, passed laws to exclude, deport, fined, jailed, mutilated and finally, send them to the gallows. And the Quakers came back again and again (which was a direct action of positive), and history records that after the hanging of four Quakers, and that the body of Margaret Brewster had been dragged by a car on the streets of Boston, "the Puritans gave to keep trying to silence the new missionaries," that "the persistence of the Quakers and non-resistance had won the battle." Another example
direct action in the early colonial history, but this time none of the peaceful type, was the incident known as Bacon's Rebellion. All our historians argue, of course, the action of the rebels in the incident, because they were right. And yet, it was a case of violent direct action against a legally constituted authority. For those who have forgotten the details, let me remind you briefly that Virginia farmers fear, rightly, a general attack by the Indians. Being asked political activists, or Bacon as their leader asked that the governor approve a committee to recruit volunteers for their own defense. The governor feared, also rightly, that such a company of armed men from becoming a threat to him. The governor rejected the request. As a result, farmers resorted to direct action. Recruited volunteers without commitment, and managed to repel the Indians. Bacon was declared a traitor by the governor, but because people support him, the governor was afraid to proceed against him. In the end, however, things got to the point that the rebels burned Jamestown, and had not been for the death of Bacon, much more could have been accomplished. Of course, the reaction was very bloody, as it happens every time a rebellion collapses or is crushed. However, even during the brief period of success, managed to correct many abuses. I'm sure the advocates of political action at all costs at the time, after the reaction was returned to power must have said: "Look what the evils of direct action have brought! What Unfortunately, progress the colony has fallen twenty-five years "and forget that if the settlers had not used direct action, his hair would have been torn away by the Indians a year earlier, rather than a number of them had been hanged by the governor a year later.
In the period of turmoil and excitement that preceded the revolution, there were all kinds of direct actions, from the peaceful to the most violent, and I think almost everyone who has studied the history of the United States in the count of these activities the most interesting part of history, the most easily recorded in memory.
peaceful Actions that took place, were the non-importation agreements, the links to use fabrics courses in the country and the "committees of correspondence." As the inevitable growth of hostilities was developing, developed violent direct action, for example, the destruction of tax stamps, or action concerning tea vessels, either to not allow the landing of area, or storage in damp, or throw water on the port, as in Boston, or force the owner of the cargo ship to burn his own ship, as was done in Annapolis. These are all registered shares in our common textbooks, certainly not in a conviction, without even an apology, but all of them are cases of direct action against legally constituted authority and property rights. If I call attention to themselves and others of similar nature is to test repeaters thoughtless words that direct action has always been used, and enjoys the historical punishment of the same people who today fails.
is said that George Washington was the leader of the League of non-importation of farmers in Virginia and today he probably would been "called to order" by a court and have formed a league, and if they have persisted in the attempt, would have been fined for contempt.
When the great conflict between the North and the South was going from red to purple, was once more direct action which preceded and precipitated a political action. And even could be argued that political action never takes place, and it is not even contemplated until slumbering minds have first been aroused by direct acts of protest against existing conditions.
The history of the movement against slavery and the Civil War is one of the greatest paradoxes, although historically it is a chain of paradoxes. Politically speaking, it was the slave states which accounted for greater political freedom for the individual state autonomy from interference by the United States, politically speaking, were non-slaveholding States which represented a strong centralized government which, the secessionists and rightly said, was destined to evolve progressively toward more and more tyrannical. That's what happened. Since the end of the first Civil War, has been a steady transfer of federal power the boundaries of what originally were the powers of individual states. The slave-workers, the struggles of today are constantly thrown into conflict with the centralized power against which he protested against the slave (with freedom on their lips and tyranny in the heart). Ethically speaking, it was non-slave states in general which represented an increase in human freedom, while the secessionist racist slavery represented. This is only a general way, that is, that most Northerners, not being accustomed to being surrounded by the actual presence of black slavery around, thought it was probably a mistake, but did not show such fervor in abolition. Only the Abolitionists, and those were relatively few, were the genuine ethical order to which slavery itself, not secession or union "was the main issue. In fact, was so fundamental to them, that a considerable number of them were in favor of the dissolution of marriage, promoting the North take the initiative to dissolve the question of the peoples of the North could shake the shame of keeping blacks in chains.
Of course, there were all sorts of people with all kinds of temperaments among those who advocated the abolition of slavery. There were Quakers and Whittier (no doubt, were the Quakers who were for peace at any price that had advocated the abolition in the early days of the colony) had moderate political activists, who were in favor of buying the freedom of slaves as the most inexpensive, extremely violent and there were people who believed in and did all sorts of violent things.
For what politicians did, there is a long list of "threatening" to-do-for-no-do-well, "a record thirty years of commitments, negotiations and attempts to leave well enough alone, and spread crumbs on both sides as new conditions demanded to do something, or pretend to be doing something. But "the stars in their orbits they fought against Sisera," the system was crumbling from within and supporters of direct action from the outside in turn widened the cracks relentlessly.
Among the various expressions of direct rebellion was the organization of the "underground railroad." Most people believed it belonged to both forms of action; but no matter how theoretically adhered to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe right of the majority to enact and enforce laws, not believe in it at that point. My grandfather was a member of the "underground," has helped more than a runaway slave escape to Canada. He was a very patient man and obedience of laws in most respects, although I have often thought that he respected the law because he had not had much contact with her, always carrying a pioneer life, usually the law was enough away from him, and direct action was imperative. Either way, law abiding or not, he had not the slightest respect for the laws of slavery, no matter what had been decided by a majority of ten to one, and consciously violated each of them crossed the road.
There were moments when the operation of the "underground" required of violence, and made use of it. I remember the story of an old friend who told me how she and her mother stood guard all night at the door, while a slave who was being pursued by the patrol was hiding in the basement, and although they were descendants and supporters of the Quakers had a shotgun over the table. Fortunately, they did not need to use it that night.
When signed into law the fugitive slaves with the help of political activists from the North who wanted to offer a new morsel to the slave, direct activists took to rescue fugitives recaptured. Took place on "Shardrach rescue" and "Jerry Rescue," the participants in this latest rescue were directed by the famous Gerry Smith, and many other successful and failed attempts to rescue. Yet politicians still wasting time and trying to mend fences, and abolitionists were reported and detracting from the peacemakers ultraobedientes of law, in much the same way that Wm. D. Haywood and Frank Bohn are now denounced by his own party.
The other day I read a statement in the Chicago Daily Socialist local secretary of the Socialist Party national secretary Louisville, asking him to supplant Bohn, who had been announced to speak there by another speaker, safe and sound mind. In explaining why, Mr. Dobbs mentioned a quote from Bohn's talk: "If the McNamaras had been successful in defending the interests of the working classes, would have been right, such as John Brown would have had succeeded in freeing the slaves. The John Brown's only crime was ignorance, and ignorance was the only crime of the McNamaras. "
Sguidamente, Mr. Dobbs said that:" We question the assertions expressed herein strongly. The attempt to draw a parallel between the open-but wrong-rebellion of John Brown on the one hand, and the secret methods and murderers of the McNamaras on the other, not only is an indicator of the shallowness of his reasoning, but highly misleading As to the logical conclusions that can be derived from those statements. "
course, Mr. Dobbs is very ignorant about life and work of John Brown. John Brown was a man of violence would have scoffed at the attempts of anyone to do it otherwise. And once a person becomes a believer in violence, he's just a question the most effective way to implement it, which can only be determined by a knowledge of conditions and the means at its disposal. John Brown for nothing be frightened by the conspiratorial methods. Those who have read the autobiography of Frederick Douglas and Reminiscences of Lucy Colman be remembered that one of the plans designed by John Brown was to organize a string of armed camps in the mountains of West Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, sending secret emissaries among the slaves by encouraging them to flee to camps and arrange action there according to what would allow the times and conditions to foment rebellion among the blacks. Whether such a plan has failed is due to the weakness of the desire for liberty among the slaves themselves, rather than anything else.
Later, when the politicians in their infinite deviousness produced a proposal on "how-not-doing," known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which left to the discretion of the settlers the issue of slavery, direct activists on both sides sent false settlers to the territory, which continued to fight. The men in favor of slavery, which came first, made a constitution recognizing slavery and a law punishable by death to anyone who helps a slave escape, but the Free Soilers, which had been delayed a little longer to come to come from distant states, made a second constitution and refused altogether to recognize the laws of the other party. And John Brown was there, mixed in all this violence, both as open conspiracy, was a "horse thief and murderer" in the eyes of decent and peaceful political activists. There is no doubt that he stole horses, without sending any signal in advance of their intention to rob them and they killed men who were in favor of slavery. Attacked and escaped several times before his final attempt at Harper's Ferry. If you did not use dynamite, it was because dynamite had not yet emerged as a practical weapon. He made many more deliberate attacks to life the two brothers that the Secretary Dobbs sentence for his "methods murderers. "Yet, history has not failed to understand John Brown. Mankind knows that though he was a violent man, with human samgre in his hands, he was guilty of high treason and was hanged for it , but his soul was big, strong, generous, unable to endure the terrifying crime to keep 4,000,000 of people like dumb beasts, and thought that making war against it was a sacred, divine (as John Brown was a very religious man - a Presbyterian).
and is through direct actions of the pioneers of social change, whether peaceful or warlike nature, that human consciousness, consciousness of the masses, stirred to the need for change. It would be very stupid to say that nothing good is ever political action, sometimes positive things can come out that way. But never until the individual rebellion, followed by the revolt of the masses, it has forced. Direct action is always throwing the cry of protest, the initiator, through which the great mass of indifferent realizes that oppression becomes unbearable.
Today there is oppression in the land - and not only on this earth, but in all corners of the world who enjoy so misleading the fruits of civilization. And just as with the issue of slavery, it also forms of slavery has been generating both direct action and political action. A certain fraction of our population (probably much smaller than the politicians accustomed to the political rallies) is producing material wealth than the rest of us live, and 4,000,000 of slaves were held to the mass of parasites above them. These are the industrial and agricultural workers.
Through inprofesable inprofesada and operation of institutions that no individual among us has created, but found existing in this world to get the absolute most essential part of any social structure, without whose services one can not eat or dress or protect themselves elements are precisely those that receive less food, clothing and shelter - not to mention their share of all other benefits the rest of us we are supposed to receive, such as education and artistic gratification.
These workers have, in one form or another mutually coupled forces to see what improvements can be achieved conditions, primarily through direct action, and then by political action. We had the Grange, the Alliance of Farmers' Cooperative Associations, colonization experiments, the Knights of Labor Unions and the Industrial Workers of the World. All these organizations have been formed for the purpose of achieving the masters start the economic field a little better wages, conditions a bit better, or one working day a bit shorter, or otherwise, to resist a reduction in wages, worse conditions and longer working hours. None of them has attempted to reach a final solution to the social war. None of them, except industrial-entry workers, acknowledged that there is a social war, inevitable as the present legal and social conditions persist. Accepted the property institutions such as they are found. Consisted of average men, with average desires, and devoted themselves to do things that seemed possible and very reasonable. They were committed to a particular political vision and were organized, but they did it through direct action based on their own initiative, either positive or defensive.
is no doubt that among all these organizations have members who saw beyond the immediate demands, that they did see that the continued development of the forces which had now been put into action was aimed at creating conditions to which it would be impossible for could continue having life, and against which, therefore, she would protest, and violently, that she would have no choice, that should do it or else die meekly, and as is the nature of life without surrendering to battle, she will not die meekly. Twenty-two years I found people of the Alliance of Farmers who said so, Knights of Labor who said so, and speaking union. They wanted to broader goals than those pursued by their organizations, but had to accept their fellow members as they were, and try to motivate them to work things just like them could see. And what they could see were better prices and better wages, working conditions less dangerous and tyrannical, shorter working hours. At the level of development in which these movements emerged, agricultural workers could not see that his struggle had nothing to do with the struggles of those involved in industry or transport, nor the latter could see that his struggle had nothing in common with that of agricultural workers. And is that even today very few see it. Have yet to learn that there is a common struggle against those who have appropriated the land, money and machines.
Unfortunately, the vast organization of farmers was wasted in a stupid race for political power. Was quite successful in gaining power in several states, but the courts declared the laws unconstitutional, and that was the grave of all his conquests policies. Their original program was to build their own silos, holding them until they can rid the market of speculators. Also, the organization of labor exchanges, credit issuing bonds on deposit products for exchange. If he had remained faithful to the direct mutual aid program would, to some extent, at least for a while, could be an illustration of how humanity can be freed from parasitism of the bankers and brokers. Of course, the outcome would have been overthrown, unless you have greatly revolutionized the minds of men by the example of the overthrow legal monopoly of land and money, but at least would have been a great educational purpose. In reality, followed by a mirage and disintegrated because of its sheer futility.
The Knights of Labor were decreasing until a relative insignificance, not having taken no direct action, nor to have been involved in politics, which was small scale, but mainly because they were a heterogeneous mass of workers could not associate their efforts effectively.
unions gained in strength as they went away, the Knights of Labor, and have continued to increase strength slowly but persistently. It is true that growth has fluctuated, there have been retorcesos that large organizations have been formed unit to return to disperse. But overall, unions have been a growing force. Have been because, being as poor as they are, have been a means by which a certain sector of workers have been able to join forces to directly confront their masters, and achieve at least a portion of what they wanted - or what the conditions dictated that they should pursue. The strike is their natural weapon, which they themselves have forged. Is the direct hit from the strike nine of ten times is feared by the employer. (Of course, there are times when you are happy for a strike, but that is not common.) And why has it strikes terror is not so much because I think APODER not going to win, but simply because they do not want an interruption of their business. The common pattern is very afraid not to "vote with class consciousness," there are plenty of shops where one can talk about socialism or any other political agenda throughout the day, but if you start talking union [ Unionism in the original N T] is expected to be fired immediately, or at least alerting him to shut his mouth. Why? Not because the boss is smart enough to know that political action is a swamp in which the worker gets bogged down, or because they believe that socialism is rapidly becoming a middle-class movement, none of that. He thinks that socialism is a very bad thing, but it is a good start! But he knows that if your factory is unionized, you will have problems immediately. The workforce will you rebel, you will have to enter expenses to improve factory conditions, it will not be able to dismiss workers who do not like, and in case of strike should expect damage to machinery or buildings.
is often said, and repeat it like parrots, that these patterns are "class consciousness," which are united by class interests and who are willing to endure any personal loss rather than betray their interests. Not so at all. Most business people are the same as most workers are preocuman much more of their personal gains or losses of its class. And it is this individual loss that is the pattern when it is threatened by a union.
Today everyone knows that a strike any size means violence. No matter what ethical preference for peace you have, you know will not be peaceful. If a strike by telegraph, it means cutting wires and poles, and put fake scabs [scab, sheep] to sabotage the instruments. If it is a steel sheet plant, means blows fall on the scabs, break the windows, loosen the valves, and destroy the expensive presses along with tons and tons of material. If this is a miners' strike, means destroying railroads and bridges and blowing up. If a strike by garment workers, anonymous means to mount a fire, launching a barrage of rocks through a window seemingly inaccessible, or maybe a piece of brick on the head of owner himself. If it is a tram strike means broken or barricaded roads with trucks with soot content or food waste to pigs, or fencing stolen cars scrapped, meaning burnt or wrecked cars and actuators apagados.Si is a train strike, other means "dead" walk unpredictably engines, freight cars derailed and delayed trains. If a strike of construction means structures dynamited. And always, everywhere all the time, fights between strikebreakers and scabs against strikers and strike supporters, among the People and the Police.
On behalf of employers, means bulbs crawlers, electrified fences, fortifications, barracks, detectives and agents provocateurs, violent abduction and deportation, and each and every one of the tools that are able to imagine for their protection, as well as last resort police, militia, the constabulary of the state and federal troops.
Everyone knows this, everyone smiles when union officials made it the call to their organizations to be peaceful and respect the law because everyone knows that they are lying. They know that makes use of violence, both secretly and openly, and know that it is used because the strikers can not do anything without giving up the fight altogether. Neither is wrong and those who resort to violence under pressure from destructive criminals do what they do for spite innate. People generally understand that they do these things by the hard logic of a situation they did not create, but forces them to make these attacks to a function in their struggle to live or perish in the pit bottomless descent into poverty, which causes death in the hospital the poor, the streets of the city or the river of sewage. This is the terrible choice facing workers and this is what makes human beings more amiable disposition - men who would do everything to help a wounded dog, or take home a stray kitten and give milk or step aside to avoid a worm crush - hand made violence against their fellows. They know, because the facts have shown that this is the only way to win, if they think anything to win. And I've always thought that a of the most extremely ridiculous and totally irrelevant that a person can say or do, when a striker facing a certain situation comes close for comfort or assistance, would be to say "Take the power through the votes!" when the next election will be six months or a year or two.
Unfortunately the people who best know how to use the trade union violence in war can not come out and say: "On that date, in such a place, it was this and that specific action, and as a result got such and such concessions, or this or that pattern had to capitulate. "Doing so would jeopardize their freedom and power to keep fighting. Therefore, those who know more should keep quiet and smile to himself, while those who have little say anything. They are the facts and not words, which should clarify their positions.
And much nonsense has been spoken in recent weeks. speakers and writers, I honestly believe that I believe that only political action can win the battle for workers, have been denouncing the that they are pleased to call "direct action" (what they really mean is violence conspiracy) and direct author of countless damage to the movement. One such Oscar Ameringer, for example, said recently at a meeting in Chicago that the Haymarket bomb '86 movement was delayed by eight hours twenty five years, arguing that the movement would have succeeded had it not been for the bomb . That's a big mistake. No one can accurately measure in years and hours of advanced effect or reaction. No one can prove that the movement would have gained eight hours for twenty-five years. We know that eight-hour day had been included in the laws of Illinois in 1871 by political means, and since then has been a dead letter. Direct action of the workers could have been achieved at the time, is something that can not be proven, but it can be shown that factors far more powerful than the Haymarket bomb worked against. On the other hand, if the reactive effect of the pump had been so powerful in fact, we should naturally expect the labor and union conditions were worse in Chicago than in other cities where no such things happened. On the contrary, bad as they are, in general working conditions are better in Chicago than in other cities large, and the power of unions is more developed there than in any other U.S. city except San Francisco. So if we can draw any conclusions about the Haymarket bomb, we must keep in mind these facts. Personally, I do not think his influence on the labor movement as such has been so important.
The same applies to the current furor about the violence. Nothing has fundamentally changed. Two men have been jailed for what they did (twenty-four years were hanged for what they had done), a few more could go to jail. But the forces of life will continue to rebel against the economic chain, not that well covers Improta vote or refrain from voting until the chains are not broken.
And how to break the chains?
Political activists tell us that only happen through the electoral activity of the working class party, getting elected to the possession of the sources of life and means of work, voting for those who now control forest , mines, farms, waterways, warehouses and factories and in the same way control the military power that defends the people to surrender their dominance.
And meanwhile?
Meanwhile, be gentle, industrious, law-abiding, patient and frugal (as Madero told to go to rural laborers, after they are sold to Wall Street)! Although some of you are poor, you stand against it, because that could "turn back the party."
Well, I said that some good things sometimes come through political action - not necessarily by the action of the party of the working class. But I am convinced that plenty of benefits are made only occasional balanced by evil, much as I am convinced that even though they have occasional ailments as a result of direct action, are outweighed by the benefits.
Almost all laws which had originally been targeted with the intent to benefit the poor, or have become weapons in the hands of their enemies, or become a dead letter unless directly trabajdaores have forced compliance. So finally, after all, is the direct action to be supported anyway. As an example of taking the side of the law crippled enough to take a look to the law against trusts, which was supposed to benefit the people in general and the working class in particular. Two weeks ago, about 250 union leaders were summoned to answer charges of being forming trusts, in response to the Illinois Central to their strikes.
But the damage to make an absolute faith in the indirect action is much greater than any of these lower results. The chief evil is that it destroys the initiative, stifles the individual spirit of rebellion, he teaches people to depend on someone else to do for them what they should do for themselves, and finally becomes the anomalous organic idea that passivity kneading until it gets a majority, and through the magic of a most peculiar way, this passivity is transformed into energy. In other words, people who have lost the habit of striking on their own as individuals, have been subjected to any injustice at the same time they expect to see grow the most, will metamorphose into a human explosive high-power a mere process of packaging!
I strongly agree that the sources of life, and all the material wealth of the earth, and tools for cooperative production must become free accessible to all. It is a certainty to me that unions must broaden and deepen its purposes or perish, and I am sure that the logic of the situation gradually force them to understand this. Should appendicocolic that the problems of workers can never be resolved by giving beatings of strikebreakers, while its own policy of maintaining high fees for members and help other restrictions that still exist strikebreakers. They must learn that the road to growth is not so much by rising wages, but by reduced working hours, which will enable the increase membership, to accept all who are willing to enter the union. They must learn that if they want to win battles, all allied workers must act together, act quickly (without paying any service chief) and maintain the freedom to continue doing so at all times. And finally, they must learn that even then (when they have achieved a complete organization) can not win anything permanent unless they do strike for everything - not by a salary, not a partial improvement, but the entire planet's natural wealth . And proceed to the direct expropriation of all of it!
must learn that His power lies not in their electoral capacity, that its power lies in its ability to stop production. It is a grave mistake to assume that employees are the majority of voters. The employees are here today and gone tomorrow, and that prevents many from voting, a high percentage of them in this country are foreigners with no right to vote. The most obvious proof that the Socialist leaders know that this is so, is that each time they adjust their propaganda to gain support of the businessmen, the small investor. His articles on campaign proclaimed that their interviewers had received security by bond buyers on Wall Street that would be as willing to buy bonds in Los Angeles of a socialist manager, as they would in a capitalist, that the current administration of Milwaukee had been a blessing for the small investor; their leaflets say to readers in this city that we need not go to big stores to buy - but rather buy this or that business in Milwaukee Avenue, to be as capable of meeting our needs as a "great commercial house. " In short, they are doing until the last desperate effort to gain support and extend the life of the middle class says that the socialist economy must be razed to the ground, because they know they can not get a majority without it. Most
a party of the working class might do, once it becomes an established organization, is to show the class of holders through a cessation of all work, the whole social structure rests on workers, that all the possessions of others are absolutely worthless without the workers' activity, that such protests, including strikes, are inherent in the system of ownership and continually recurring to that the entire system be abolished - and having shown this in practice, proceed to expropriate.
"But military power," said political activist, "we must achieve political power, or the army will be used against us!"
General Strike Against a truth, the army can not do anything. Sure, if you have a Socialist as Briand in power, he could appoint "public servants" to the workers and try to make him serve him against themselves! But against the solid wall of an immovable mass of workers, to be broken Briand.
meantime, until this global awakening, the war will continue as today, despite all the hysteria that can express well-intentioned people who do not understand life and its needs, despite all the hesitation of the timid leadership; to Despite all the reactionary vengeance running, despite all the capital that politicians take the situation. Continue to live because life demands, and the property denied their freedom to live, and life will not submit.
and should not be undertaken.
continue until the day that mankind is able to self-released singing the "Ode to Man" Swinburne:
"Glory to Man in the highest, because He is the King." Notes
Haymarket Riot: Anarchist demonstration held in 1886 in Chicago in which seven policemen were killed. [N T].
2 Members of the Society of Friends, a Christian society of the mid-seventeenth century believed that the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of all men (light inside). Were violently repressed as they were forced to emigrate and New England (North America). Radical pacifists, many of its representatives were prominent in social reform. A kind of leftists of the era. [N T]
3
Protestant movement originating in England (XVI and XVII centuries) who sought to purify worship of the Anglican Church through the exclusion of all those elements whose authority could not be found in the Bible [N T]
4 tod Throughout the text uses the word 'activist', but not in the sense that we give today: the original text uses Actionist, this is in this context, 'supporter a form of action 'which can not be translated into Castilian as' shareholder'. [N T]
5 Refers to the American Revolution (1775-1983) [N. T]
6 As should have seen, the meaning of the word 'politics' of the time was associated more directly to institutional, state [N T]
7 Brown, John (1800 -59): American Abolitionist. In 1859 prompted a black slave insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. The attempt failed and Brown was hanged for treason. This increased opposition to slavery.
8 Knights of Labor: Despite its name the Knights of Labour. American pioneer union formed in 1869 by Philadelphia tailors, gradually disappearing toward the beginning of the twentieth century and have been replaced by what would be the American Federation of Labor (AFL) which initially was not the white union is today. [N T]
9 Briand, Aristide (1862-1932) French socialist statesman, 10 times prime minister between 1909 and 1929. He played a leading role in the separation of church and state in 1905 and in the formation of the League of Nations [N T]
[Translated from English by George Kape for La Haine]
Extracted from La Haine
"You can simply pay the fare in a coach to my house, shoot without spending anything. But if the payment of 1000 dollars is a necessary part of its proposal, then I have given you the shot, I'll give the money to the propaganda of the idea of \u200b\u200ba free society in which there have been no murderers or presidents, nor beggars nor senators. " 