Tag: Anarchism

Almeda Sperry to Emma Goldman, 1912

Ms. Cat

Almeda Sperry to Emma Goldman, 1912, by Jonathan Ned Katz

These letters suggest that some kind of active sexual relationship did occur between the two women. There is also no doubt about the character and intensity of Sperry’s feelings, so strongly and unambiguously expressed. The letters indicate that Goldman returned Sperry’s affection, though with less passion and desperate need than Sperry felt.

In one undated, and atypically puritanical statement, Sperry tells Goldman:

Never mind about not feeling as I do. I find restraint to be purifying. Realization is hell for it is satisfying and degenerating.

In another undated letter Sperry writes to Goldman:

God how I dream of you! You say that you would like to have me near you always if you were a man, or if you felt as I do. Dearest, I would not if I could. I would soon die…. the thought of distance adds to my terrible pain–so pleasurable. I want no calm friendships. The thoughts of annihilation used to appeal to me. Today they do not. …

The letters do suggest that Goldman in her personal relations with Sperry had come close to that tabooed homosexual activity which she early and publicly defended in lectures, to the chagrin of even her unconventional anarchist comrades. The writings of Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Almeda Sperry suggest that at least some American anarchists were, at an early date, more than usually tolerant and open-minded about homosexuality.

Related:

The Letters

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[2008] When the Left Was Right

Ms. Cat

The ghosts of 1968 are haunting Barack Obama, which is tremendously unfair, I say as his coeval, given that our cohort spent the Chicago Democratic Convention sticking baseball cards in our bicycle spokes rather than pelting Mayor Daley’s finest with porcine epithets. But guilt by association is ironclad in these days when American political discourse is controlled by hall monitors and tattletales. Obama’s friendship—acquaintance?—with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn is about to get extended play as the Republicans contrast Obama’s Weatherfriends with their nominee’s stint in the Hanoi Hilton.

When the Left Was Right

Left Anti-Communism: a Trojan Horse That Weakens the Working Class

Ms. Cat2 Comments

“The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.”

Left Anti-Communism: a Trojan Horse That Weakens the Working Class – MLToday

In Nahel M., a Stranger Killed by Police, French Protesters See Friend and Kin + More

Ms. Cat

“We don’t forget, we don’t forgive,” crowds chanted as they denounced the shooting death of a 17-year-old from the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

In Nahel M., a Stranger Killed by Police, French Protesters See Friend and Kin

Related:

Nahel M.: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

France: ‘La rage, partout’ Responses after the umpteenth police execution

Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’

Ms. Cat
Source.

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art – including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince – except that it acted secretly – the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’

Former Antifa + US Marine killed in Ukraine

Ms. Cat

Former US Marine killed in Ukraine

Andrews worked for an activist group known as the Resistance Committee, according to their social media statements. They said he was killed assisting the evacuation of civilians from the city. Andrews left Cleveland, Ohio in November and joined the Foreign Legion in Ukraine, a group of foreign fighters helping the Ukrainian military. His contract ended in March, Mrs. Andrews said, and he decided to stay on.

Related:

Meet the motley crew of anarchists and anti-fascists fighting Russia in Ukraine