White Light Black Light

I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we

followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered

their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods

of the Market-Place.

But they always caught up with our progress, and

presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or

the lights had gone out in Rome.

were utterly out of touch

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they

denied she was even Dutch

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied

that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who

promised these beautiful things.

promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered

And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick

to the Devil you know."

the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended

by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men

lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The

Wages of Sin is Death."

abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective

Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was

nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If

you don't work you die."

smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and

began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and

Two make Four --

to explain it once more.

* * * *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man --

There are only four things certain since Social

Progress began --

returns to her Mire,

wabbling back to the Fire --

brave new world begins

must pay for his sins

will burn

slaughter return!

// posted by Alice @ Friday, December 30, 2005 0 Comments

*

Be courteous, kind, and forgiving. Be gentle and peaceful each day.

Be warm and human and grateful,

And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,

Be witty and happy and wise.

Be honest and love all your neighbors,

Be obsequious, purple and clairvoyant.

Be sure to stop at stop signs, And drive fifty-five miles an hour.

Pick up hitchhikers foaming at the mouth,

And when you get home get a master's degree in geology.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus.

Be dull and boring and omniprescent.

Criticize things you don't know about.

Be oblong and have your knees removed.

(Ladies only) Never make love to Bigfoot.

(Men only) Hello, my name is Bigfoot.

(Everyone) Put a live chicken in your underwear.

Go into a closet and suck eggs.

*

// posted by Alice @ Wednesday, December 28, 2005 0 Comments

Complex graphics best viewed one at a time -- the latest in SubGenius non-moving pictures.

Welcome to the wide open, wide-screen, dilated-pupilled world of SubGenius graphics, wherein the hideous and the beautiful become almost... well, not indistinguishable, but for some of us, it gets to where we PREFER the hideous stuff.

• THE ART MINES START HERE. ALL of our full-brain, eye-rip graphics. ALL OF THEM. Over 20 "Tunnels," each containing a dozen or two entire galleries. The latest in SubGenius™ non-moving pictures. (FIND YOUR DOBBSHEADS HERE).
• SubGenius VIDEO DINGLEBERRIES, STASH 6 Dozens of short SubGenius videos in every format imaginable.
• THE EYE OF "BOB" Includes special (older) graphics SubSections, such as the prehistoric SubG Video Archives, our GWAR and M/TV adventures, Olde Nenslo, and the PORTRAIT GALLERY of LIVING SUBGENIUS GODS and TOPLESS GODDESSES. -- UPDATED Nov. 2002 BX.

// posted by Alice @ Monday, December 26, 2005 0 Comments

We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill
As the day begs the night for mercy love
The sun so bright it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone
On the face of earth
The moon is up and over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes

You run like river, on like a sea
You run like a river runs to the sea

And in the world a heart of darkness
A fire zone
Where poets speak their heart
Then bleed for it
Jara sang, his song a weapon
In the hands of love
You know his blood still cries
From the ground

It runs like a river runs to the sea
It runs like a river to the sea

I don't believe in painted roses
Or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I'll see you again
When the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red
Over One Tree Hill

We run like a river
Run to the sea
We run like a river to the sea
And when it's raining
Raining hard
That's when the rain will
Break my heart

Raining...raining in the heart
Raining in your heart
Raining...raining to your heart
Raining, raining...raining
Raining to your heart
Raining...raining in your heart
Raining in your heart..
To the sea

Oh great ocean
Oh great sea
Run to the ocean
Run to the sea

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, December 24, 2005 0 Comments

Expressing his appreciation to all the members of parliament from across the world and other participants, His Holiness said that although some Chinese government officials may consider the convention as “anti-Chinese’, in reality it is not at all anti-Chinese or anti-China. He emphasised that the Tibetan struggle is neither anti-Chinese nor anti-China and that moment the Chinese leadership show genuine understanding and a willingness to resolve the Tibet issue, there will be no need for outside support for the just Tibetan cause.

His Holiness said that China’s recent attitude toward the fragile ecology of Tibet and the news tore habilitate the late Chinese leader Hu Yaobang were positive developments.

“I admire Hu Yaobang’s courage. In 1982 he visited Tibet and reduced the number of Han Chinese settlers in Tibet,” His Holiness said adding that all man-made problems are created because of ignorance and lack of proper knowledge and information.

His Holiness also spoke about how the Tibetan people were implementing democratic principles of governance in exile and hoped that the present Chinese leader Hu Jintao will adopt a more realistic approach to resolve the Tibet issue.

The 4th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet’s “Edinburgh Declaration” thanked “the people of Scotland and the Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on Tibet and the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet as well as the City of Edinburgh for their hospitality in hosting this convention.” Among other points, it “called on all governments and parliaments to monitor closely China’s behaviour in Tibet and developments regarding negotiations with the Dalai Lama and his representatives, and to place and keep Tibet firmly on the agenda of bilateral and multilateral discussions with China.”

Earlier, His Holiness visited the Scottish Parliament where he was welcomed by Mr. Chris Ballance, Convener of the Scottish Cross Party Parliamentary Group on Tibet and other members of the Cross Party Tibet Group. Mr. Ballance said that Tibet has a significant place in the world and this is why it was important that Tibet be made a Zone of Peace as envisioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

In the morning His Holiness spoke on the subject of “Ethics for the New Millennium” at the Usher Hall, tickets for which were sold out a long time back according to the officials of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association, which with the backing of the Edinburgh City Council had organised the public event. Prof. Sheila MacLean, a distinguished academic of international standing and repute also spoke and shared the platform with His Holiness. The conversation was chaired by the Rt. Revd Richard Holloway, who is a writer/broadcaster and Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council.

His Holiness told the capacity filled audience that the best solution to solve a problem is through dialogue in a spirit of mutual respect and good motivation. He said the application of non-violent method does not have any negative side effect.

“It is common sense that war is bad. In order to achieve genuine world peace we need to develop inner disarmament as well as external disarmament,” said His Holiness, who in his book, “Ancient Wisdom, Modern World – Ethics for the New Millennium” further elaborates by saying, “Peace is not something which exists independently of us. But nor does war. It is true that certain individuals – political leaders,policy makers, army generals – do have particularly grave responsibilities in respect for peace. However,these people do not come from nowhere. Like us, they were nourished by their mother’s milk and affection.They are members of our own human family and have been nurtured within the society, which we as individual shave helped create. Peace in the world thus depends on peace in the hearts of individuals. This in turn depends on all of us practicing ethics by disciplining our response to negative thoughts and emotions, and developing basic spiritual qualities.”

Like the last visit to Edinburgh in June 2004, this visit of His Holiness to the Scottish capital also generated a lot of public goodwill and media attention for Tibet and the Tibetan Nobel Peace Laureate’smessage of peace and tolerance. At all the programme venues the atmosphere looked colourfully vibrant and festive with Tibetans, Edinburghians and others lining up the street to greet His Holiness.

// posted by Alice @ Friday, December 23, 2005 0 Comments

Satellite snaps sunbathing ne'er-do-well

// posted by Alice @ Friday, December 23, 2005 0 Comments

"A STARVING MAN HAS A NATURAL RIGHT TO HIS NEIGHBOR'S BREAD".

CARDINAL MANNING.

"I HAVE NO IDEA OF PETITIONING FOR RIGHTS. WHATRVER THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE ARE, THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO THEM, AND NONE HAVE A RIGHT TO EITHER WITHOLD OR GRANT THEM".

PAINE'S "Rights of Man". "ASK FOR WORK; IF THEY DO NOT GIVE YOU WORK ASK FOR BREAD; IF THEY DO NOT GIVE YOU WORK OR BREAD THEN TAKE BREAD".

EMMA GOLDMANN.

A LECTURE.

"Give us work" said EMMA GOLDMANN; "if you do not give us work, then give us bread; if you do not give us either work or bread then we shall take bread."-- It wasn't a very wise remark to make to the State of New York, that is--Wealth and its watch-dogs, the Police. But I fear me much that the apostles of liberty, the fore-runners of revolt, have never been very wise. There is a record of a seditious person, who once upon a time went about with a few despised followers in Palestine, taking corn out of other people's corn-fields; (on the Sabbath day, too). That same person, when he wished to ride into Jerusalem told his disciples to go forward to where they would find a young colt tied, to unloose it and bring it to him, and if any one interfered or said anything to them, were to say: "My master hath need of it". That same person said: "Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that taketh away thy goods ask them not back again". That same person once stood before the hungry multitudes of Galilee and taught them, saying: "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; therefore whatever they bid you observe, that observe and do. But do not ye after their works, for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments: and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi'." And turning to the scribes and the pharisees, he continued: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a presence make long prayers: therefore shall ye receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done and not left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup end plaster, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous; and say, 'if we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets'. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! Ye serpents! Ye generations of vipers! How can ye escape the damnation of hell!"

Yes; these are the words of the outlaw who is alleged to form the foundation stone of modern civilization, to the authorities of his day. Hypocrites, extortionists, doers of iniquity, robbers of the poor, blood-partakers, serpents, vipers, fit for hell!

It wasn't a very wise speech, from beginning to end. Perhaps he knew it when he stood before Pilate to receive his sentence, when he bore his heavy crucifix up Calvary, when nailed upon it, stretched in agony, he cried: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!"

No, it wasn't wise--but it was very grand.

This grand, foolish person, this beggar-tramp, this thief who justified the action of hunger, this man who set the right of Property beneath his foot, this Individual who defied the State, do you know why he was so feared and hated, and punished? Because, as it is said in the record, "the common people heard him gladly"; and the accusation before Pontius Pilate was, "we found this fellow perverting the whole nation. He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry".

Ah, the dreaded "common people"!

When Cardinal Manning wrote: "Necessity knows no law, and a starving man has a natural right to his neighbor's bread", who thought of arresting Cardinal Manning? His was a carefully written article in the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. Who read it? Not the people who needed bread. Without food in their stomachs, they had no fifty cents to spend for a magazine. It was not the voice of the people themselves asserting rights. No one for one instant imagined that Cardinal Manning put himself at the head of ten thousand hungry men to loot the bakeries of London. It was a piece of ethical hair-splitting to be discussed in after-dinner speeches by the wine-muddled gentlemen who think themselves most competent to consider such subjects when their dress-coats are spoiled by the vomit of gluttony and drunkenness. But when EMMA GOLDMANN stood in Union Square and said, "if they do not give you work or bread then take bread", the common people heard her gladly and as of old the wandering carpenter of Nazareth addressed his own class, teaching throughout all Jewry, stirring up the people against the authorities, so the dressmaker of New York addressing the unemployed working-people of New York, was the menace of the depths of society, crying in its own tongue. The authorities heard and were afraid: therefore the triple wall.

It is the old, old story. When Thomas Paine, one hundred years ago, published the first part of "The Rights of Man", the part in which he discusses principles only, the edition was a high-priced one, reaching comparatively few readers. It created only a literary furore. When the second part appeared, the part in which he treats of the application of principles, in which he declares that "men should not petition rights but take them", it came out in a cheap form, so that one hundred thousand copies were sold in a few weeks. That brought down the prosecution of the government. It had reached the people that might act, and prosecution followed prosecution till Botany Bay was full of the best men of England. Thus were the limitations of speech and press declared, and thus will they ever be declared so long as there are antagonistic interests in human society.

Understand me clearly. I believe that the term "constitutional right of free speech" is a meaningless phrase, for this reason: the constitution of the United States, and the Declaration of Independence, and particularly the latter, were, in their day, progressive expressions of progressive ideals. But they are, throughout, characterized y the metaphysical philosophy which dominated the thought of the last century. They speak of "inherent rights", "inalienable rights", "natural rights", etc: They declare that men are equal because of a supposed, mysterious wetness, existing somehow apart from matter. I do not say this to disparage those grand men who dared to put themselves against the authorities of the monarchy, and to conceive a better ideal of society, one which they certainly thought would secure equal rights to men; because I realize fully that no one can live very far in advance of the time-spirit, and I am positive in my own mind that, unless some cataclysm destroys the human race before the end of the twentieth century the experience of the next hundred years will explode many of our own theories. But the experience of this age has proven that metaphysical quantities do not exist apart from materials, and hence humanity can not be made equal by declarations on paper. Unless the material conditions for equality exist, it is worse than mockery to pronounce men equal. And unless there is equality (and by equality I mean equal chances for every one to make the most of himself) unless, I say, these equal chances exist, freedom, either of thought, speech, or action, is equally a mockery.

I once read that one million angels could dance at the same time on the point of a needle; possibly one million angels might be able to get a decent night's lodging by virtue of their constitutional rights; one single tramp couldn't. And whenever the tongues of the non-possessing class threaten the possessors, whenever the disinherited menace the privileged, that moment you will find that the constitution isn't made for you. Therefore I think anarchists make a mistake when they contend for their constitutional rights. As a prominent lawyer, Mr. Thomas Earle White of Phila., himself an anarchist, said to me not long since: "What are you going to do about it? Go into the courts, and fight for your legal rights? Anarchists haven't got any." "Well", says the governmentalist, "you can't consistently claim any. You don't believe in constitutions and laws." Exactly so; and if any one will right my constitutional wrongs I will willingly make him a present of my constitutional rights. At the same time I am perfectly sure no one will ever make this exchange; nor will any help ever come to the wronged class from the outside. Salvation on the vicarious plan isn't worth despising. Redress of wrongs will not come by petitioning "the powers that be'. "He has rights who dare maintain them." "The Lord helps them who help themselves." (And when one is able to help himself, I don't think he is apt to trouble the Lord much for his assistance.) As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no", the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed. When they conceive the possibility of a complete international federation of labor, whose constituent groups shall take possession of land, mines, factories, all the instruments of production, issue their own certificates of exchange, and, in short, conduct their own industry without regulative interference from law-makers or employers, then we may hope for the only help which counts for aught--Self-Help; the only condition which can guarantee free speech, (and no paper guarantee needed).

But meanwhile, while we are waiting, for there is yet much grist of the middle class to be ground between the upper and nether millwheels of economic evolution; while we await the formation of the international labor trust; while we watch for the day when there are enough of people with nothing in their stomachs and desperation in their heads, to go about the work of expropriation; what shall those do who are starving now?

That is the question which EMMA GOLDMANN had to face; and she answered it by saying: "Ask, and if you do not receive, take,--take bread".

I do not give you that advice. Not because I do not think that bread belongs to you; not because I do not think you would be morally right in taking it; not that I am not more shocked and horrified and embittered by the report of one human being starving in the heart of plenty than by all the Pittsburgs;, and Chicagoes, and Homesteads, and Tennessees, and Coeur d'Alenes, and Buffaloes, and Barcelonas, and Parises not that I do not think one little bit of sensitive human flesh is worth all the property rights in N. Y. city; not that I think the world will ever be saved by the sheep's virtue of going patiently to the shambles; not that I do not believe the expropriation of the possessing classes inevitable, and that that expropriation will begin by just such acts' EMMA GOLDMANN advised, viz: the taking possession of wealth already produced; not that I think you owe any consideration to the conspirators of Wall Street, or those who profit by their operations, as such nor ever will till they are reduced to the level of human beings having equal chances with you to earn their share of social wealth, and no more, not that I would have you forget the consideration they have shown to you; that they have advised lead for strikers, strychnine for tramps, bread and water as good enough for working people; not that I cannot hear yet in my ears the words of one who said to me of the Studebaker Wagon Works' strikers, "if I had my way I'd mow them down with gatling guns"; not that I would have you forget the electric wire of Ft. Frick, nor the Pinkertons, nor the militia, nor the prosecutions for murder and treason; not that I would have you forget the 4th of May, when your constitutional right of free speech was vindicated, nor the 11th of Nov. when it was assassinated; not that I would have you forget the single dinner at Delmonico's which Ward Mc.Allister tells us cost ten thousand collars! Would I have you forget that the wine in the glasses was your children's blood? It must be a rare drink--children blood! I have read of the wonderful sparkle on costly champagne; -- I have never seen it. If I did I think it would look to me like mother tears over the little, white, wasted forms of dead babies;--dead--because--there was no milk in their breasts! Yes, I want you to remember that these rich are blood-drinkers, tearers of human flesh, gnawers of human bones! Yes, if I had the power I would burn your wrongs upon your hearts in characters that should glow like live coals in the night!

I have not a tongue of fire as EMMA GOLDMANN has; I cannot "stir the people"; I must speak in my own cold, calculated way. (Perhaps that is the reason I am let to speak at all.) But if I had the power my will is good enough. You know how Shakespeare's Marc Antony addressed the populace of Rome:

"I am no orator, as Brutus is, But as you know me all, a plain blunt man That love my friend. And that they know full well That gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech To stir men's blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know, Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar's, that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny."

If, therefore, I do not give you the advice which EMMA GOLDMANN gave, let not the authorities suppose it is because I have any more respect for their constitution and their law than she has, or that I regard them as having any rights in the matter.

No. My reasons for not giving that advice are two. First, if I were giving advice at all, I would say: "My friends, that bread belongs to you. It is you who toiled and sweat in the sun to sow and reap the wheat; it is you who stood by the thresher, and breathed the chaff-filled atmosphere in the mills, while it was ground to flour; it is you who went into the eternal night of the mine and risked drowning, fire-damp, explosion, and cave-in, to get the fuel for the fire that baked it; it is you who stood in the hell-like heat, and struck the blows that forged the iron for the ovens wherein it is baked; it is you who stand all night in the terrible cellar shops, and tend the machines that knead the flour into dough; it is you, you, you, farmer, miner, mechanic, who make the bread; but you haven't the power to take it. At every transformation wrought by toil some one who didn't toil has taken part from you; and now he has it all, and you haven't the power to take it back! You are told you have the power because you have the numbers. Never make so silly a blunder as to suppose that power resides in numbers. One good, level-headed policeman with a club, is worth ten excited, unarmed men; one detachment of well-drilled militia has a power equal to that of the greatest mob that could be raised in New York City. Do you know I admire compact, concentrated power. Let me give you an illustration. Out in a little town in Illinois there is a certain capitalist, and if ever a human creature sweat and ground the grist of gold from the muscle of man, it is he. Well, once upon a time, his workmen, (not his slaves, his workmen,) were on strike; and fifteen hundred muscular Polacks armed with stones, brickbats, red hot pokers, anti other such crude weapons as a mob generally collects, went up to his house for the purpose of smashing the windows, and so forth; possibly to do as those people in Italy did the other day with the sheriff who attempted to collect the milk tax. He alone, one man, met them on the steps of his porch, and for two mortal hoers, by threats, promised, cajoleries, held those fifteen hundred Poles at bay. And finally they went away, without smashing a pane of glass or harming a hair of his head. Now that was power! And you can't help but admire it, no matter if it was your enemy who displayed it; and you must admit that so long as numbers can be overcome by such relative quantity, power does not reside in numbers. Therefore, if I were giving advice, I would not say, "take bread", but take counsel with yourselves flow to get the power to take bread.

There is no doubt but that power is latently in you; there is little doubt it can be developed; there is no doubt the authorities know this, and fear it, and are ready to exert as much force as is necessary to repress any signs of its development. And this is the explanation of EMMA GOLMANN'S imprisonment. The authorities do not fear you as you are, they only fear what you may become. The dangerous thing was "the voice crying in the wilderness" foretelling the power which was to come after it. You should have seen how they feared it in Phila. They got out a whole platoon of police and detectives, and executed a military maneuver to catch the little woman who had been running around under their noses for three days. And when she walked up to them, why then, they surrounded and captured her, and guarded the city hall where they kept her over night, and put a detective in the next cell to make notes. Why so much fear? Did they shrink from the stab of the dressmakers needle? Or did they dread some stronger weapon?

Ah! -- the accusation before the New York Pontius Pilate was: "she stirreth up the people". And Pilate sentenced her to the full limit of the law, because, he said, "you are more than ordinarily intelligent". Why is intelligence dealt thus hardly with? Because it is the beginning of power. Strive, then, for power.

My second reason for not repeating EMMA GOLDMANN'S words is, that I, as an anarchist, have no right to advise another to do anything involving a risk to himself; nor would I give a fillip for an action done by the advice of some one else, unless it is accompanied by a well-argued, well-settled conviction on the part of the person acting, that it really is the best thing to do. Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. IT means self-responsibility, and not leader worship. I say it is your business to decide whether you will starve and freeze in sight of food and clothing, outside of jail, or commit some overt act against the institution of property and take your place beside TIMMERMANN and GOLDMANN. And in saying this I mean to cast no reflection whatever upon Miss Goldmann for doing otherwise. She and I hold many differing views on both Economy and Morals; and that she is honest in hers she has proven better than I have proven mine. Miss Goldmann is a communist; I am an individualist. She wishes to destroy the right of property, I wish to assert it. I make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated. She believes that co-operation would entirely supplant competition; I hold that competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should. But whether she or I be right, or both of us be wrong, of one thing I am sure; the spirit which animates EMMA GOLDMANN is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny--the spirit which is willing to dare and suffer.

That which dwells in the frail body in the prison-room to-night is not the New York dressmaker alone. Transport yourselves there in thought a moment; look steadily into those fair, blue eyes, upon the sun-brown hair, the sea-shell face, the restless hands, the woman's figure, look steadily till these fade from sight, as things will fade when gazed long upon, look steadily till in place of the person, the individual of time and place, you see that which transcends time and place, and flits from house to house of Life, mocking at Death. Swinburne in his magnificent "Before a Crucifix" says:

"With iron for thy linen bands, And unclean cloths for winding-sheet, They bind the people's nail-pierced hands, They hide the people's nail-pierced feet: And what man, or what angel known Shall roll back the sepulchral stone?"

Perhaps in the presence of this untrammeled spirit we shall feel that something has rolled back the sepulchral stone; and up from the cold wind of the grave is borne the breath that animated ANAXAGORAS, SOCRATES, CHRIST, HYPATIA, JOHN HUSS, BRUNO, ROBERT EMMET, JOHN BROWN, SOPHIA PEROVSKAYA, PARSONS, FISCHER, ENGEL, SPIES, LINGG, BERKMANN, PALLAS; and all those, known and unknown, who have died by tree, and axe, and fagot, or dragged out forgotten lives in dungeons, derided, hated, tortured by men. Perhaps we shall know ourselves face to face with that which leaps from the throat of the strangled when the rope chokes, which smokes up from the blood of the murdered when the axe falls; that which has been forever hunted, fettered, imprisoned, exiled, executed, and never conquered. Lo, from its many incarnations it comes forth again, the immortal Race-Christ of the Ages! The gloomy walls are glorified thereby, the prisoner is transfigured: And we say, reverently we say:

"O sacred Head, O desecrate, O labor-wounded feet and hands, O blood poured forth in pledge to fate Of nameless lives in divers lands! O slain, and spent, and sacrificed People! The gray-grown, speechless Christ."

// posted by Alice @ Thursday, December 22, 2005 0 Comments