Transcribing the Past

  We Want Freedom for All A Jewish Anarchist Statement Published by the Libertarian Worker’s Group FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT Back in 1889, amidst the squalor and destitution of New York’s Lower East Side, a group of young Jewish workers created the first anarchist journal to be published in Yiddish, Di Varhayt (The Truth) . After 20 issues, the paper was reconstituted as ­ Di Frei Arbeiter Shtimme (The Free Voice of Labor) , and for the next 86 years it served as one of the major forums of anarchist thought in the Yiddish-speaking world as well as a leading journal of the Jewish labor movement and Yiddish subculture. It[sic] its heyday, Di Frei Arbeiter Shtimme was the voice of a movement composed of thousands of Jewish working women and men who were not only fighting the bosses in the sweatshops but also combatting domination and exploitation wherever encountered: in their unions, in their communities, in their homes and schools. They defied the puritanical conventi...

  Note, transcribed by user  cumming insurrection     A Thousand Young Persons Are Being Trained in New York to Be Successors of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. So quietly has the anarchistic propaganda been carried on in New York that it will, without doubt, send a chill of arctic iciness down the spines of the many people who profess to stand in holy horror of the theory to learn through this article that to-day anarchistic Sunday schools are in session here just as are Sunday schools for bringing up the young to follow Methodism, Baptism, or any other form of faith or creed. There are easily a thousand children in these schools, children who will, beyond peradventure, grow up to be Alexander Berkmanns and Emma Goldmans, with perhaps a Ferrer or a Tolstoy appearing. They range in age from 6 years to 16. During the week they go to the public schools and sing their own part in the grand chorus of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” recite the lessons offered by the syste...

Abolish Wage Labor Capital allows us only one kind of productive activity: wage-earning people have to be broken in for years before they are willing to accept the loss of 1/3 of their time to working, not to mention the other 2/3 of their time which is spent recuperating from work. Ideologists maintain that work is necessary, because they equate commodity-production with social wealth. But nowadays being rich doesn’t necessarily mean that you lead an exciting life; it just means that you own a lot of objects. Society leads proletarians to believe that, if they work hard enough, they can lead this mythical “good life,” thereby condemning them to mind-numbing work at some idiotic activity with the goal of obtaining ridiculous objects. All those hours lost on the job, all those unfulfilled desires, and in return, a salary, the reward for having participated in commodity-produciton. And the only thing one can do with this reward is acquire more commodities. A salary gives access o...

  The letter below, sent to the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, was signed by Albert Einstein but was largely written by the Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd. No attempt at original formatting has been made. Albert Einstein Old Grove Rd. Nassau Point Peconic, Long Island August 2nd, 1939 F.D. Roosevelt President of the United States, White House Washington, D.C. Sir: Some recent work by E.Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations: In the course of the last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard...

   A leaflet about Stonehenge by The Pleasure Tendency a Situationist inspired Anarchist group based in Yorkshire, published 1986.  CONSERVATION OF THE MONUMENT The Pleasure Tendency Something very important is happening at Stonehenge. It is not at all surprising that the Government should stamp on ancient rights for its own ends, but what these ends are is as yet unknown. It may be they are connected with as yet undisclosed military activities. Or, more interestingly, with the persecution of a dissident element which stands in the way of the New Britain, that is, one in which Consumer Society extends into every area of life. On the last night of 1900, two stones fell of their own accord, perhaps an omen; in the next year, tolls were established for the first time for entry to the site. In a post-industrial commodity economy, intangibles will increasingly have to become objects of consumption, and be degraded because of it; Stonehenge is only one example. The `damage` cau...

 I debated whether to include this transcript here, I consider this blog an archive for work related loosely to working class history and this doesn't quite fit under that umbrella. Still, I think it deserves to be preserved.  Content Warning Discussion of physical and sexual abuse of children, including graphic details. I'm including a tran s cript of segment from the RTE program Questions and Answers (similar in format to the UK's Question Time) from May 2009. The transcript concerns the response from audience member Michael O'Brien to the panel concerning their response or lack of response to the systematic abuse of vulnerable Irish women and children by the Catholic Church. This has been an open wound in Ireland for some time, and I'm sorry to say that it reached and affected members of my family. Even now there are ad campaigns encouraging victims to come forward, the scale of the abuse and the cover-ups are hard to imagine.    I came across O'Brien's a...