Monday, February 27, 2006

WARNING


WARNING

by Richard E. Noble




WARNING!!! This is an eighteen inch piece of string, and it could be dangerous to your unsupervised child.

Any child over one foot in height could attempt to use this string as a jump rope and possibly break their neck.

Under no circumstances should a butcher knife ever be tied to the end of this string.

If this string is soaked in water and then frozen, it could be used by your child to poke another child’s eye out.

Your unsupervised child could dip this string in melted wax, or lighter fluid or other flammable(or inflammable) material and then use this coated eighteen inch string as a wick for a stick of dynamite or other explosive.

Your unsupervised child could use this eighteen inch string to strangle a younger brother or sister to death.

Your child could also use this string to sneak into YOUR room late at night and strangle you and your mate (or present companion) to death also.

Your child could dip this string in rat poison; eat it, and then die.

Your child could try to shove this string up another companion’s nose with a kitchen fork, and seriously injure that individual, and possibly damage your fork.

Your unsupervised child could tie this string around his leg cutting off circulation. If not detected within a reasonable period of time, this condition could lead to the amputation of your child’s limb.

This string could be wadded up, then soaked in molten lead, and after cooling stuffed into the mussel of your black powder rifle and used by your unsupervised child to kill the family cat.

A needle could be attached to this string and then it could be used by your child to sew up his own rectum, or the rectum of a sibling or close friend.

To whom it may concern.. YOUR UNSUPERVISED CHILD IS A THREAT TO US ALL … PLEASE WATCH THE LITTLE SUCKER WILL YOU, FOR GOD’S SAKE!

P.S. Do us all a favor and get yourself ‘fixed’ will you please. You obviously can’t
handle this child, what in the world would you do with another one.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sex is Normal





Sex is Normal?

by Richard E. Noble

I have always had a problem with the concept or definition of the word normal. People are prone to say things like; “That just ain’t normal ... why that’s against human nature ... leave that boy alone, Ethel - he is just being a normal all-American boy.” But what is normal anyway?

Normal is what everybody else does. As long as you do as everybody else does, you will be considered normal. In this country you can do a heck of a lot of weird things and still be considered normal. You can wear rings in your ears and that is perfectly normal within a certain group - be they male or female. But, if you stick a bone through your nose, you will probably be considered abnormal - even at a rock festival. You can grow your hair long or short; you can color it purple; you can shave it all off; you can shave just some of it off and leave parts of it growing here and there; you can even carve little slogans into your scalp - like; “Billy-joe dumbo 1991” or “Go Red Devils”. You can do just about anything and still be considered normal - right up until the time that somebody comes up to you and says; “Sir, you have the right to remain silent, anything that you say from this moment on, etc.”

It has always seemed to me that as long as there are enough people performing a certain type of behavior, then, whatever it is that they are doing, is considered normal.

If, for example, you eat spaghetti by snorting each strand up one of the nostrils of your nose, you will probably be considered abnormal. But, if you can get twenty million other people to eat spaghetti in a similar manner, it will not only be considered normal behavior, but probably a social custom and/or national tradition.

My problem is that I seem to have been born with my own personal, built-in genetic sense of what is normal and what is not normal. If it attacks my sensibilities as abnormal then, by golly, it is abnormal even if the whole world is doing it.

For example, let’s take sex. Sex is abnormal. I don’t care how you do it, or who or what you do it with - it is abnormal.

I have always known this - even as a little boy. In fact, I can remember to this day, the first time that another little boy tried to explain to me what my father had done to my mother in order for me to be born. I was very upset, because I knew that the behavior that he had just described was not normal. I knew that my father was much too intelligent and possessed much too much pride in himself to be acting like that.

And even if he did have, hidden somewhere deep inside, such a kinky-ness, my mother would never have allowed it.

But, you say, what is so abnormal about sex? Everybody does it and if they didn’t, the human race would have died out long ago. You are exactly right. And clearly, extinction was God’s plan for the human race. But, that is a discussion for another time and another place. Sex is our topic here; its normalcy or ab-normalcy - as one Republican president would have put it, many decades past.
To get a clearer grasp of the abnormalcy of sex let change things around slightly.

What if, at a certain age - let’s call it fool-berty - every time a little boy looked upon a pretty little girl, his big toe suddenly and mysteriously swelled up to three times it’s normal size. Is this normal? Would any of you consider this normal? I think not, but let us continue.

Let’s say that each and every time this little boy sees this pretty little girl, he is struck by an overpowering desire to run up to this pretty little girl and rub his big, swollen toe into her right ear. IS THIS NORMAL? Tell me, in all honesty, DO YOU THINK THAT THIS IS NORMAL?

Let us continue. Let us hypothesize that if this little girl allows this little boy to rub his swollen big toe into this little girl’s right ear, there is the distinct possibility that her head - over a period of months - will swell up to two, or maybe three, times its normal size; AND, at the end of a nine month period, an eight to twelve pound baby will be secreted, forcibly, through one of the nostrils of her nose - right nostril, it is a boy; left nostril, it is a girl. This is normal? This sounds normal to you? Even if it happened to everybody would this seem normal to you? Come on? You all know better. Deep down inside you all know, as well as I do, that sex just isn’t normal. Despite Alexander Pope, just because something is - that don’t make it right. You know it; and I know it. I can just hear the conversation in the back seat of that old Chevy right now;

“Okay Leroy! Just keep your shoes on.”

“But ... but ... you just don’t understand how this feels - look.”

“I don’t want to look at your big toe, you moron. Just keep that thing tucked in your sock; besides, I have an ear ache.”

“Oh come on? It won’t hurt. Nothing will happen.”

“Yeah, right . . . you’re not the one whose head is going to swell up. How would you like to have a bowling ball stuffed up your nose?”

Now seriously, my friends, what is the difference here? All that I did was change around a few body parts here and there. Clearly using the proper body parts makes this no saner an act or circumstance. The whole situation is totally absurd. This so called normal sexual behavior is just as ludicrous no matter what body parts we substitute.

Let’s get real! The baby grows on the inside of the woman? Then this eight or twelve pound monstrosity is forced out of the woman’s body via a hole the size of a walnut?

THIS IS NORMAL!

As that goofy looking guy on the TV would say - give me a break will you please.

Let’s wake up and smell the roses here. God is trying to tell us all something but we just aren’t listening.

You see, after Adam and Eve screwed up in the Garden of Eden, God decided that the human race was just a big mistake. He was going to put Adam and Eve to sleep, but He just didn’t have the heart. Sure they were dumb, disobedient, and a total pain in the butt, yet they were, nevertheless, kind of cute - in a stupid sort of way. Instead of simply destroying Adam and Eve, He decided on another course. He would make sex, and the process of reproducing, such a ridiculous, embarrassing, idiotic, and physically painful experience, that no human being in its right mind would actually consider it an option. But as you all can see, God severely overestimated man’s sense of dignity and self-respect, and woman’s innate curiosity and obvious masochistic tendencies.

In any case, sex, no matter how it is practiced - with whom or with whatever - has always been a clear perversion of God’s Plan as far as I am concerned. Whether you are a heterosexual, a homosexual, a bisexual, a mono or mano-sexual, a shoe or sox fetish-ist, or find yourself attracted to watermelons; whether you choose the missionary position, the military position, the Marquis de Sade position, the Monica Lewenski position or even the Abu Ghraib prisoner of war position - you are all a bunch of perverts to me.

My personal philosophy with regards to sex is pretty much the same as the philosophy of most of the girls that I have dated throughout my lifetime. I don’t care how you do it, or who does it better - just so long as you don’t try to do it to me.

YOU GET ME!

And that does mean YOU!

Any of you!

Saturday, February 25, 2006

IM A STUBBORN OLD MULE

I’M A STUBBORN OLD MULE

by Richard E. Noble

I’m a stubborn old mule,
As stubborn as they come.
A rail between the eyes is the only thing
that’ll make me run.

He doesn’t pat me gently on the brow,
or say, “Come now friend, a little further now.”
No, No! It’s a beam between the eyes,
and a roaring scream and cry,
as he pushes and shoves with venom for an eye,
and brutality frothing in his unpatient sigh.

He has no memory of the burden I bore,
when I carried him, his gold, and a mountain of store.

He forgets how on the side of cliffs I trod,
as he cowered and crazed and cursed his God.

He has no memory of the thirst I craved,
carrying his drink to an early grave.
He’s a brave man who went down in books,
A crusty determined miner.
And I, who braved his dirty looks,
hefted the load of gold for my forty-niner.

Ah yes, a brave man was he,
but he wouldn’t have a nickel if it weren’t for me.

But I’m a stubborn old mule,
and as dumb as can be.
But the old bastard wouldn’t have a nickel,
if it weren’t for the likes of me.

Carried him where his pretty horses wouldn’t go,
through mountains, and deserts, and fields of snow.
But, in his fancies, he dreams of a saddle and a golden mane,
his pretty little horses, dining on sacks of expensive grain.

But for his trusty, dusty steed, forever at his side,
it’s a drunken mumble, an untempered lash,
and another scar in my hide.

Many a day, when I’d had enough,
I sat in the middle of the road,
and laughed as he stammered and huffed and puffed.
Oh, how he wished to shoot me ...
but who would carry the load?

Yes, many a time I wouldn’t go on.
But does he remember how I danced on the edge of a cliff,
as he trembled and gasped, and for his life hung on.
A man of might, and right and power and gain,
and as he drunk his whiskey and barked to the stars,
I stood by quietly in the snow and the rain.

I’m as stubborn as a mule,
as stubborn as they come.
A rail between the eyes is the only thing
that’ll make me run.

I carry his load, sure footed I go,
but when I’ve had enough of his rum drenched batter,
I pull up, take a seat, and listen to his chatter.

The other day, in a fit of rage,
he pulled his rifle from my side.
“Move along, you stubborn old bastard,
or I’ll shoot you right here,
and then tan your damn hide.”

I yawned, then lifted my head and brayed.
I curled my lips, then bared my broken teeth.
And when he shouldered his gun, I stared into the breech.
I felt the powder as it burnt my eye,
and a dull thud as a jolt from hell pierced my skull,
and I fell there onto my side.

But I’m a stubborn old mule,
as stubborn as they come.
I laid there with his pack and store,
and stared up at his eye.
And I’m proud to say, I hung there waitin’ to die,
long enough to see the dumb bastard put down his rifle and cry.

Yes, I’m a stubborn old mule,
As stubborn as they come.
It takes a rail between the eyes
to get me up to run.
But when you have a load too tough to hold,
it’s a call for the likes of me.
And I bear it well, sure footed and determined,
right to the rim of hell.
But what he can’t stand,
is that I’m a bit of a man.
And, as the man, I have my pride,
and how I tried, and tried, and tried.
But, oh how glad I am that when I came to die
I was beast enough to make the bastard cry ...
Yes, beast enough ...
to make that bastard

cry.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great 356-323

by Richard E. Noble

Alexander is known as “the Great”, according to the prominent historian Will Cuppy, because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his times.
One thing that one should keep in mind when reading about ancient peoples is that the great majority of them and their rulers were out of their ever-loving minds. Alexander was no exception. His father, Philip of Macedonia, was a raving, alcoholic lunatic. He and young Alexander had numerous fist fights, and on several occasions tried to stab one another to death. Dad always felt cheated because “he never done got no education”, so he hired the unemployed, fleeing refugee from Athens, Aristotle, to learn his little boy.
One of the high points in the life of Alexander the Great was that he was taught for a couple of years by this famed philosopher, Aristotle. This seems to have had as much of an effect on little Alexander as early Christian training had on Adolf Hitler. Aristotle, you will remember, is the great teacher who taught that the brain is an organ that exist merely for the purpose of cooling the blood and is not involved in the thinking process. This is only true of certain persons, says Willy Cuppy.
Alexander’s Mom, Olympias, was a cutesy herself. She liked snakes, and had them roaming all over the castle. And as Willy Cuppy says; “Having real snakes at home does an alcoholic no good, it just complicates matters.” She had her husband assassinated, and then boiled one of his several other wives, alive.
To complicate Alexander’s rise to “Greatness” coming from this background of dysfunctional family life, he also seems to have been burdened with a “sexual identity” problem. But being a Greek in those good-old-days, no one noticed.
He got drunk one evening and killed one of his best friends. This made him cry - not the best friend, Alex - the next day of course; he was too drunk the day he actually performed the dirty deed to cry, or laugh for that matter. He also crucified the physician of Hephaestion, his roommate.
Alexander the Great was a real sweetheart. One can only marvel at anyone calling this man “Great”. How about Alexander the Terrible, or Alexander the Lunatic, or Alexander the Sick and Deranged. Both he and his roommate died of fever and drunkenness. Lucky for all of us, he died at thirty three. I should think that Alexander was the kind of kid who could have changed the Pope’s mind on the value of abortion.
But let’s not leave Alexander the Moron on a negative note. For some mystical reason he didn’t persecute the Jews and was responsible for introducing the eggplant to Europe. What I guy!

Friday, February 24, 2006


Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf

An Analysis - Chapter 1

by Richard E. Noble
My first misconception with regards to Mein Kampf is that it was a book that was not widely read. Mein Kampf sold by the millions in Germany. It actually went on, in sales around the world, to make Adolf Hitler, its author, a millionaire. Adolf dictated the book to Rudolf Hess, his friend and follower, while in prison in the early 1920’s.
I am going to go over the book section by section in analysis. I have chosen this book, because without any doubt this has to be considered the most devastating book of this century. This man’s goal as I understand from my brief investigation into History was to conquer the whole world, and in that process liquidate whole nations and races of people in order to make room for the expansion of what he considered his own kind, or race.
The copy that I have of this book was printed in 1939, the original in 1925. In the introduction Adolf Hitler is credited with saying ... that it was only ‘eternal peace’ which destroyed peoples, and that neither the individual nor society could escape nature’s decree that the fittest alone survive ... It is my belief that unless this basic philosophy is defeated logically and reasonably, and overthrown in the minds of all mankind, civilization of the human beast will never be accomplished. The human race will remain in its present stagnated condition, until it eventually destroys itself, or reduces itself once again to the primitive.
It is my purpose in analyzing this book to discover where Adolf Hitler went wrong, and how so many people were able to give support and extend credibility (and money) to his philosophy. My inspiration for this work has been Jean Paul Sartre’s work on the life and writing of St. Genet. I hope this book will be as interesting, thoughtful and insightful. I can only do the best with what I have.
Before the book begins, there is a dedication to a number of men who were killed in an uprising or protest that was conducted on November 9, 1923. The list includes occupations of the deceased: bank employees, a hatter, a locksmith, a head waiter, businessmen, engineers, a councilor and a retired cavalry captain.
The first impression one gets here is that this is a book dedicated to the common man and written by a supporter of the common people. I also know that Adolf wrote this book while he was confined in a prison. I know from previous reading that the book was dictated to his secretary and confidant Rudolf Hess.
The book was written in 1923, so I know that World War 1 was over. I know that Adolf had been a soldier in World War 1. I know that he was exposed in that war to poison gas; he was temporarily blinded, and that he was a decorated war hero. This all leads me to the conclusion before I even start reading that this is not going to be a subjective book dealing with personal discovery. The author has already fought in a world conflict. He has since been arrested and incarcerated for an attempt to undermine his country’s present government or leadership. Before I even start, I am led to believe that I am going to be here exposed to a man who has his mind made up on things. He is more than likely going to tell me how he came to believe what he believes. Even though the writing is taking place in a prison cell, this is obviously not going to be an act of contrition.
In his preface he states that this book is not addressed to strangers but to the followers of his movement. In the preface he also states;
“...I know that one is able to win people far more by the spoken than by the written word, and that every great movement on this globe owes its rise to the great speakers and not to the great writers.”
I don’t know if this point of view can really be defended. For the most part all that remains of Adolf and his movement is this book. I have never heard any of his speeches, and my guess is that very few others in today’s world have either. And, as far as I know, every great movement can be traced back to someone’s writings. I would say that the written word far outstrips the spoken word, except, of course, to the illiterate. But even then every idea heard spoken anywhere by anyone can usually be traced back to someone else’s writings.
I start criticizing right here at the very beginning, because I feel throughout the book we will encounter Adolf making these blanket statements that don’t hold up under analysis. If one doesn’t counter this from the beginning, he will eventually be lulled to sleep by impressive rhetoric rather that truth, or fact, or logical thinking.
The first chapter is entitled ‘At Home’. In these first twenty five pages he tells about his mother and father.
His father was a stubborn man he states, and in the same sentence he acknowledges his own stubbornness;
“...My father did not give up his ‘never’, and I strengthened my ‘nevertheless’...”
And this debate with his father comes from a boy less than twelve, and is in relation to his future career. At twelve years of age little Adolf decided that he was going to become a painter, an artist.
His father thought this to be insanity. He wanted Adolf to become a government official - some sort of bureaucrat.. He says in this chapter that he respected his Father, but loved his Mother. By the age of thirteen his father had died, and his mother was not strong willed enough to keep him on the road to bureaucracy. He ended up in some kind of art school pursuing his dream. Not long thereafter, his mother also died. He is around eighteen at this time, and decides to pack up and head for Vienna. I perceive Vienna to be the Greenwich Village, New York City of the area. It seems that Adolf was running off to Bohemia, to pursue his future as a painter in Harvard Square or some such comparable place. But even here in a chapter supposedly dealing with his childhood relationships, we find a lacing of discordant political statements:
“I became a nationalist ... I learned to grasp and understand the meaning of History ... There are only three kinds of people in the world, the fighters, the lukewarm, and the traitors .The art of reading is to remember the important and forget the unimportant …”
The entire book is filled with these type blanket statements. One can only wonder as to the ‘real meaning of History’, or what would be considered important enough to remember, and unimportant enough to be forgot.
His division of people is reminiscent of Dante and his Inferno. The only good people are those that ‘act’, all others are doomed to Hell, or there a bouts. His division of people is curious. There are the fighters. These are obviously people who know the truth of their beliefs and are willing to defend them with overt action. There are those who don’t know what to believe and are therefore condemned to inaction. And lastly there are the traitors. These are obviously those who know what they believe, and are willing to defend it, but unfortunately what they believe is contrary to what Adolf believes; and since what Adolf believes is not only the truth but loyal and patriotic, those who disagree must be traitors. This makes it rather easy to pick and choose your friends, doesn’t it? It is also very easy to determine your enemies. They are those who disagree with you. If there were any truth or sensibility to this notion, I would have killed my wife years ago.
In any case, Adolf closes out this chapter with this statement:
“I, too, hoped to wrest from fate the success my Father had meet fifty years earlier; I, too, wanted to become something - but in no event an official ...“
Wanting to become ‘something’ or ‘somebody’ is, on the one hand, a sign of ambition and drive, but on the other hand it can also be a sign of inferiority. In other words, if you feel inside yourself that you are ‘somebody’, then why would you feel the need to become ‘somebody’? I have always felt that I am somebody, even if others don’t realize it, or the world doesn’t recognize the fact. And for the most part I have never allowed people to treat me otherwise. In any case, this statement by Adolf says to me that Adolf has feelings of inadequacy, and a desire to prove his worth to the world, or at least, to others. He has a social awareness, something to prove. I also realize that people who want to become ‘somebody’ often end up being successful in life, but many others who harbor these same feelings often end up in prison.
The next chapter is entitled ‘Years of study and suffering in Vienna.’ This chapter is very interesting. This chapter is the most compassionate in the book. In it he explains his feelings towards the poor and unemployed, and he also expresses some of his own inner feelings and emotions:
“...Vienna, the city that to so many represents the idea of harmless gaiety, the festive place for merry making, is to me only the living memory of the most miserable time of my life ... Hunger was then my faithful guard; he was the only friend who never left me, who shared everything with me honestly. Every book I bought aroused his sympathy; a visit to the opera made him my companion for days; it was a constant struggle with a pitiless friend. And yet during this time, I learned as I have never learned before. Apart from my interest in architecture, and my visits to the opera for which I had to stint myself, books were my only pleasure.”
This passage borders on the poetic. One could imagine Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine or even Victor Hugo writing such a passage. But coming from a man who later in his life mercilessly starved millions of people to death, it becomes rather difficult to place any faith in its sincerity. Here we see a lover of the opera, books, and architecture - a man who even sacrificed food to enjoy these intellectual pleasures.
He claims to have learned just about everything that he knows in life from these learning experiences in Vienna. Here again he makes one of those blanket statements that appear so often throughout the text:
“...Today it is my firm belief that in general all creative ideas appear in youth ...“
I have heard others make this same statement many times, but I would doubt that it could be defended by any type of credible research.
In this chapter he analyzes the social class structure, in the most basic terms. Why does the bourgeoisie (middle class) hate the proletariat (working class)?
“... The reason for that which one could almost call hostility is the fact that a social class which has only recently worked its way up from the level of manual labor, fears to fall back into the old, but little esteemed class, or at least fears being counted in with that class … “
He calls the bourgeoisie, ‘upstarts’ who have lost their pity and their memory ...
Thousands of unemployed loitered about:
“ … The homeless sought shelter in the twilight and the mud of the canals ... I do not know which is worse: the ignoring of the social misery by the majority of the fortunate, or by those who have risen through their own efforts, as we see it daily, or the graciously patronizing attitudes of a certain part of the fashionable world (both in skirts and trousers) whose ‘sympathy for the people’ is at times as haughty as it is obtrusive and tactless. These people do more harm than their brains, lacking in all instinct, are capable of imagining … social work, should not deal out favors, but restore rights ... The uncertainty of earning my daily bread seemed to me to be the darkest side of my new life …”
Wow, with a speech like that, Adolf could run on the liberal end of any party in American politics today. Social Work should restore rights? What rights? Is eating a right to be guaranteed by the state? Is a job a right guaranteed by the state? Is survival a right? Is medical care a right? Is security in one’s old age a right? Is medical care for children a right? Is a home a right? Is education a right? Is freedom from hunger a right?
In our Declaration of Independence we say that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (later - property in place of happiness). This is a very vague statement when examined. You have the inalienable right to life, but nothing is mentioned about a ‘right’ to sustain that life, or that anything directed towards this end should be provided for you by the State in attaining this end. You have the ‘right’ to liberty. And this right to ‘liberty’ entitles you to do what? And you have the ‘right’ to pursue your own happiness. You can pursue it, but the state is offering you no guarantee that you will catch it, nor that you won’t be locked up in a prison if pursuing your brand of ‘happiness’ interferes with the pursuit of happiness of other citizens.
The Bill of Rights gets more specific, but even today seems to be forever debatable. So when you say that ‘social work’ should restore ‘rights’ to the people as opposed to dispensing charity, what have you said? And even more important, what do the people to whom you are speaking, infer from this language?
The first thing that everyone will assume is that you the speaker believe that they have some sort of rights, even if nobody knows what the hell they are. It does make one who is feeling helpless feel good to hear that somebody up there thinks that they have some rights. We know that Adolf believes that fate leaves things in the hands of the ‘fittest’. What ‘rights’ does such a philosophy leave to the ‘unfit’?
In these next few pages Adolf goes on to describe the perils of poverty and unemployment. He describes how unemployment leads to the dissolution of the family. How husband and wife are turned against one another. How the children raised in this atmosphere lose their respect for authority in general. How men often turn to alcohol and abuse. How proper management of the family income disintegrates - poverty, then setting the ground work for future failure. And finally, how the indifferent and well off ‘bourgeoisie’ are at a loss in understanding the obvious lack in patriotic, nationalistic spirit exhibited by this class of people. He closes this very credible analysis with a bang and a demand for creating sound social conditions:
“ …For only those who, through education and schooling, get to know the cultural and economic, and above all the political greatness of their own country, can and will be proud of being allowed to call themselves members of this nation ... Moreover, I can only fight for what I love, only love what I can respect, only respect what I know … “
There is a good deal of emotion in that last sentence, but is it true? Can one only fight for what one loves?
I have met many people who seem to simply love to fight. And from what we know of Adolf, he may very well be one of them. Often times, it seems to me that we end up fighting in self-defense, and not for a real love or understanding of anything. Moreover, if we look at a true history of Germany, or any nation for that matter, I think that any objective person will probably come up with as much to hate as there is to love in its background. The histories of any people or so called race on this planet will more than likely establish the same attitude of indifference, whether we examine Aborigines, Asians, Africans, Caucasians, or any mix there of. The human species has no quarter on righteousness as far as I can see. And it seems to me that the idea of fighting is much more involved in the notion of ‘hate’ than it is in the concept of love. To find the roots of ‘war’, I think it imperative to examine the nature of ‘Hate’. How we humans inherit it. How we learn it. And once we have it, what are proper and improper outlets for it.
It is also interesting to me that Adolf’s mother died on December 21, 1908. It was at this point that he packed up and headed for Vienna and the artist colony but:
“... In 1909-10 my own situation had changed somewhat, as I no longer had to earn my daily bread as an unskilled worker. I worked independently as a modest draftsman and painter of aquarelles … “
So, it seems that Adolf experienced ‘employment interruptions’ for a period of possibly six months to a year. Gosh, he certainly drew a whole slew of moral convictions from missing a few meals and being occasionally unemployed. Even though, during these ‘dire’ circumstances of his life he was still able to go to the theater, and the opera, and purchase books, and seemingly in great quantity. He must have, because it is during this period that he claims to have learned almost everything that he knows. And it seems that he learned the bulk of what he knows from reading books. Yet he doesn’t give other people that he has met much credit for their ability to learn from books:
“... I know people, who endlessly read ... Of course, they posses a wide ‘Knowledge’ but their intellect does not know how to distribute and register the material gathered …(And I agree whole heartedly, don’t you? I find this to be the case almost inevitably with almost “everybody else” whom I know.) ... They lack the ability to distinguish in a book that which is of value and that which is of no value ... Reading, furthermore is not a purpose in itself, but a means to an end. It should serve; first of all, to fill in the frame which is formed by the talents and abilities of the individual ... reading has to furnish the tools and building materials which the individual needs for his profession. Secondly, reading has to give a general picture of the world ... otherwise the result will be a terrible muddle of things learned, and this is not only of little value, but it also makes its unfortunate possessor presumptuous and vain. For now he thinks that he knows life and has knowledge; whereas in reality with each new contribution to his education he is more and more estranged from the world, until frequently he ends up in a sanatorium, or as a politician in parliament …”
Well well! What do we think of that? Adolf has a little sense of humor here. As I recall we will see not too much of Adolf humor in any of the pages to come - though it has been noted that in his speeches he often had the crowd roaring with laughter. He is said to have been very satirical and witty on political matters.
They say that in this life, we often spend a great deal of time criticizing others for our own defects. From what I can see in this last paragraph, old Adolf has hit his own nail right on the head.
From here on in this chapter, he continues to criticize what must obviously be one of his arch political rivals, the Socialist Democratic Party. The Social Democrats won the hearts of the working man because of the ‘stupidity’ of the bourgeoisie.
“… The bourgeoisie, in the most stupid, but also the most immoral manner turned against claims which were generally and humanly justified … They foolishly suppressed all attempts to improve working conditions, safety devices on machines, abolition of child labor, and protection of the woman at least during those months when she carries under her heart the future fellow citizen … “
In this chapter we also find this interesting statement:
“… The psyche of the great masses is not receptive to half measures or weakness ... Like a woman, whose psychic feeling is influenced less by abstract reasoning than by an undefinable, sentimental longing for complementary strength, who will submit to the strong man, rather than dominate the weakling, and inwardly they are far more satisfied by a doctrine which tolerates no rival than by the grant of liberal freedom; they often feel at a loss what to do with it, and even easily feel themselves deserted ...“
I think what he is really saying here is that the masses, like ‘woman’, really don’t like to be treated free and equal, but deep down inside would rather be slapped around a little bit. Sounds good to me, what do you girls out there think about that?
He then continues, and for a few pages sounds a lot like Jimmy Hoffa:
“ … It is nonsense and, furthermore, untrue that the union movement in itself is unpatriotic. Quite the contrary is true ... As long as there are amongst the employers people with little social understanding or even lacking a sense of justice and fairness, it is not only the right but the duty of their employees ... to protect the interest of all against the avarice and the unreasonableness of the individual ... The individual worker is never in a position to maintain his position against the power of big business …”
But, having said this we go on to what was really happening out there in the streets according to Adolf. The unions, under the leadership of the Social Democrats, were really trying to destroy the nation by ‘screwing’ their demands higher and higher, to the point of complete unreasonableness.
“… the free trade union ... was one of the most terrible instruments of intimidation against the security and the independence of the national economy, the solidity of the state and personal freedom ... It was the free trade union above all which turned the conception of democracy into a ridiculous and repellent phrase, which profaned liberty and ridiculed fraternity forever with the words, and if you will not join with us, we will crack your skull …”
From here on the rest of the chapter basically explains how Adolf, the idealist, is transformed into an anti-Semite. The first thing one notices is that Jewry enhances a lot of territory.
“... understanding Jewry alone is the key to the comprehension of the inner, the real intention of social democracy. He who knows this race will raise the veil of false conceptions and out of the mist and fog of empty social phrases there rises the grinning, ugly face of Marxism...”
We seem to have an amalgamation here; Jewry, Marxism, unionism, democracy, Social Democrat; all are one and a part of a conspiracy to undermine the German nation.
Adolf on democracy, or representative government:
“ … I was indignant at the fact that in a state where every half-wit not only claimed the right to criticize, but where in the Reichstag he was let loose on the nation as a ‘legislator’, the bearer of the imperial crown could be given ‘reprimands’ by the greatest babbling institution of all time ...”
Sounds to me like a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. Yet, this is a criticism of representative government that goes all the way back to Socrates and Plato, and can be heard on a daily basis here in the United States. Where Adolf differs from the American critic here is his humiliation on the part of the ‘imperial crown’. Interestingly enough, Adolf felt that it was fit for him, an average citizen to bad mouth the Congress, but not appropriate for the Congress to criticize the ‘imperial crown’.
He then gets into the press and goes on to include it in his list of Jewish synonyms. He goes on to link Jewry with prostitution, and white European slave traffic. He further isolates Jews as traitors by their quest for a homeland, the Zionist movement is anti-nationalistic. If the Jew truly felt himself to be a German, why would he be pushing for an independent Jewish state? At this point in the chapter he literally sees a Jew behind every bush. And in his closing paragraph he tells us exactly what the Jews are up to:
“… The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle in nature; instead of the eternal privilege of force and strength, it places the mass of numbers and its deadweight. Thus it denies the value of the individual in man, disputes the meaning of nationality and race, depriving mankind of the assumption for its existence and culture. As the basis of the universe it would lead up to the end of all order conceivable to man ... If with the help of the Marxist’s creed, the Jew conquers the nations of this world, his crown will become the funeral wreath of humanity ...”
My first question is what the hell is the ‘aristocratic principle of nature’? The eternal privilege of force and strength?? Adolf is obviously an elitist, who believes in the principle that ‘might makes right’. We see now that Adolf is not only a nationalist, who is loyal to the principle of monarchy, but also considers himself to be a member of the privileged class - that class who has the right to its position through the power of force and strength - which is the eternal principle and right of the dominator. But he denies the masses the right to use their power of ‘eternal number’ to counter the natural dominance of the superior, which seems to be the king and his court plus Adolf and his friends. I would say that this is traditional Conservatism.
We have taken a big jump here. Not long ago we were listening to Adolf - the union organizer, the defender of the people and the common man. Now, suddenly, we have Adolf the Knight of the royal court, defending his castle of Germany from the rabble rousers – the Loyalist.
His last sentence in this chapter is extraordinary:
“ … Therefore, I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator: By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s works …”
What a finale! Adolf, our Knight in shining armor, leading at the direction of the Almighty, a twentieth century crusade, for the reestablishment of the King and Crown. Wow! It is hard to imagine Adolf Hitler and God in the same room. But, when one looks at God as ‘The All-Mighty’ - the Creator and the Indiscriminant Destroyer of life - the One who has the ability to point the finger and cripple; the one who can kill a baby; implant its mother with a cancer; the One who determines who will be healthy, who will be sick, who will be slave, who will be a prince, who will be alive tomorrow and who will not - we can see Adolf in his All-mighty, proceeding bravely forward to do the work of an All-Mighty GOD.

[This is my first entry on this subject. This will be a continuing series on this blog. Click Search This Blog to find other entries.]

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

BUT DO YOU LOVE ME




BUT, DO YOU LOVE ME

by Richard E. Noble

But, do you love me?
And how would I know?
I look into your eyes, but the love doesn’t show.
So how ... how would I know?
Days and nights, weeks and years …
moments of laughter, and a lifetime of tears.
But, do you love me?
And how would I know?
Nothing I see would tell me it’s so.
We touch, we love, we laugh, we smile,
we cherish the memories, mile after mile.
But, do you love me?
And how would I know ... unless once in a while …
you’d tell me so.

Monday, February 20, 2006

John Pierpont Morgan

John Pierpont Morgan 1837- 1913

By Richard E. Noble

“Morgan the Magnificent - If ever there thrived a money potentate whose fortune was preeminently eulogized as having been acquired by purity of method, that man was J. Pierpont Morgan.”
Morgan, unlike Rockefeller and Jay Gould, was not only adept in business and finance, but also in the art of personal propaganda.
His father, Junius S. Morgan, was a millionaire, and he was involved and became a partner with a George Peabody of the Peabody Company. George Peabody and Company were appointed the financial representatives in England of the United States of America at the onset of the Civil War. Mr. Gustavaus Myers - author, Historian and Journalist - claims in his book “History of the Great American Fortunes”, that they were guilty of “the most active treason”. He accuses them of conspiring with the British on behalf of the Confederacy against the Union Government while all the while being on the Union Government payroll.
J. Pierpont was a chip of the old block. At age twenty-four he pulled his first big deal.
In 1857 inspectors condemned a large number of Hall’s carbines as dangerous and unserviceable. About five thousand of these rifles remained in the army arsenal in New York City in 1861. Via a couple of intermediaries (Arthur M. Eastman and Simon Stevens) Morgan offered to purchase these five thousand riffles for $3.50 each. On August 5, 1861, General Fremont, at St. Louis, was offered these “new carbines, in perfect condition”. He agreed to buy them. The rifles were still in the New York arsenal, and still owned by the U.S. government at the time of the purchase. Morgan, after getting the order from Fremont, then notified his agents in New York to purchase the defective, condemned carbines. The carbines were bought for $3.50 each and sold to Fremont for $22.00 each. This was a $92,426 profit for Morgan and friends.
In an investigation in 1862 by one of the select Congressional Committees, the following was stated in their report;
“The Government not only sold one day, for $17,486, arms which it had agreed the day before to repurchase for $109,912 - making a loss to the United States of $92,426 - but virtually furnished the money to pay itself the $17,486 which it received.”
Upon investigation the Government decided that it had been cheated, but because the guns were ordered, delivered and issued to soldiers on the battlefield, they agreed to pay Morgan $13.31 per rifle. Morgan took the payment of $55,550 but then proceeded to sue the Government for breach of contract. The court, under a Judge Peck, ruled that a contract is a contract and that the government must pay Morgan the full amount agreed upon.
The soldiers who had these rifles explode in their faces due to their defective firing pins had no lawyers, never knew about their weapons being defective to start with, or were too dead to bother to sue anybody.
In the History of American Business and Industry published by American Heritage Publishing Co. and edited by American Heritage and Business Week - on page 194, I read about “The Morgan Gold Rescue”. In this scenario Morgan is hailed as the Banking hero who comes in to rescue president Grover Cleveland who is undergoing a mysterious gold shortage in the U.S. Treasury. Morgan, patriotically, offers to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Government bonds with gold from his vaults in order that the government can maintain its Treasury Reserve of gold required by law.
Mr. Myers in his book has a much different story to tell. The mysterious loss of gold in the Treasury, Mr. Myers claims, was brought on by Morgan and friends in the first place.
Morgan and his banking associates all over the nation began turning in their gold certificates and notes. Very shortly it was the banks themselves that had all of the government’s gold in their various vaults. The banks did this knowing that the government would then be forced to issue bonds. This is exactly what the Treasury was forced to do. But Grover Cleveland, rather stupidly, was influenced to sell this bond issue to the Morgan banks. The Morgan banks quickly bought up all the government bonds at a low price and a high paying interest rate to them. They immediately sold the bonds at an even higher price, got themselves millions more in redeemable gold notes and quickly tuned them in for more Treasury gold. Thus they had the government caught in a revolving door where-by they not only bankrupted the Treasury of its present day gold reserve, but by trafficking the bonds on this money merry-go-round, they could also bankrupt future generations of Americans with a looming National Debt.
Newspapers finally got hold of the story and exposed the swindle to the people. The public outcry forced Cleveland to dump the Morgan syndicate and make a public, properly floated, bond issue which sold bonds directly to investors thus putting a stop to the revolving gold door.
Morgan and company did manage to gain themselves 62 million in bonds but America was saved the swindle on the additional 200 million dollar bond issue that the government had been forced into by Mr. Morgan and friends.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

CALL OF THE DEAD




CALL OF THE DEAD

by Richard E. Noble

As I pulled each foot, pace after pace, and drudged about the yard,
Hating, despising, but keeping my place, and finding it increasingly hard.
I pulled my bitterness up from the pace, and stared at the spacious sky.
The hate siphoned down to the tips of my toes, and fancies shrouded my head.
Though not in the least did it assuage my woes, for hatred is never dead.

“Follow the song of the dead,” They said.
“Follow the song of the dead.
The dead are the spirits who know, yes know...
The dead are the spirits who know.”

I just walked in rank while my spirit sank, and my head began to bob.
But as the pavement slipped, and the leather gripped, they were only doing their job.
Their job ... it was, to keep us in step ... step, upon step, upon step.
Step to the pace ... the pace of a race ... they’re only doing their job.

I turned from the thought which cruelty wrought and returned my head to the sky.
But upon this thought, my vision caught, the horror of those who die.
And now entwined with the song of the dead, an apparition before my eye...
All ragged, worn and weary souls were marching across the sky.

“Come join the ranks of the dead,” They said.
“Come ... join us rancorous dead.”

And on they marched, across the sky, a line which had no end,
Moaning, and groaning, with ghoulish cry, the rancorous song of the dead.

“The dead are the spirits who know, yes know ...
The dead are the spirits who know.”

I closed my eye to the specter nigh, and frantically shook my head.
But in my ears, yet, the lingering cry, in the raucous tone of the dead.

“Follow the song of the dead,” They said.
“Follow the song of the dead.”

With averted eye, I shunned their cry, as yet they marched over head.
I chained my pace, and firmed my step, fearing to loose the beat.
One and two ... one and two ... Conform you feet to the beat.

I walked and walked, it seemed like miles, avoiding their deathly smiles.
But then as I looked, aside of my foot, another was pacing the same.
With horror, I shook, as his hand he put, and cooled my sweating palm.
With a frigid flame, he called my name. He tugged and yanked at my arm.
I confused my step, then shuffled from harm and joined again with the real.
But with a voice that quelled, I heard him yell;

“You’re just a spoke in a wheel.
You may march away and avoid our song,
but shortly your heart will swell.
Never can you march away from the throng,
and pass by the flames of Hell.”

With a demon-faced fear, I remember his sneer, as he rejoined the ranks of the dead.
He was last in line ... then the skies turned clear, and my face from white to red.

Well, that was a day I won’t forget, and here I am marching again.
The sky is bright, and my spirits light. It’s the happiest day of the year.
Above my head, there’s a cloudy bed, and everything seems so dear.
A smile on my face, as I skip to the pace, mocking that ghoulish sneer.
With fences around, and the treacherous sound, flowing beyond the barbed wire,
I laugh at the race, and grin at the face, as marching we tramp by the mire
The soggy and snake ridden mire ... that offers no hope or desire.

But as I walk, I hear the clock, cracking away like fire.
But oh, not again! ... It can’t be again! ... And I turned my head to the clouds,
A huge mass of white, towering in height, sailing across the sky.
Like a desert of white, on a sea of night, it brings me a breathless sigh.
It’s motion aloft, so flowing and soft, beckons me to its choir.
My head, it spins, as my heart it wins, and I dance to the glorious choir.

But then a dull tick-tock, as I hear the clock, and my feet head for the mire.
The guard screams ... “Halt!.. .It isn’t my fault!” and now I’m before the barbed wire.
The clouds they beam like a cascade of dreams, as I watch them float up higher.
“HALT, OR I’LL SHOOT!” And the whistles, they toot... “HALT, OR I’LL BE FORCED TO FIRE!”
But my feet had no fault as they mocked the assault, and climbed the treacherous barbed wire.
“To freedom!” They sing. “We’ll fly you right over the mire.”

Well, as the clouds ... they dance, my feet ... they prance, and the guns begin to fire.
But with a few more steps ... just a few more steps, I’ll be slouching my way through the mire.
Then I heard a ringing, and angels singing. And as I followed the clouds ahead,
It seems the voice of Destiny’s choice, chanted to me and said;
“Turn yourself around, and see what you’ve found.” And there, I saw myself ... dead.
Floating in the mire, my body swept higher, as they lifted me from my bed.
The sky all red, in torrents it bled, like my body afloat on the mire.

Then, back through the gate enclosed by the wire, watching my body with dread
I heard the beat ... The beat ... of the feet ... of the dead ... and that same ghoulish voice ... it said;

“Come follow the song of the dead,” He said.
“Come follow the song of the dead.
The dead are the spirits who know, yes know.
The dead are the spirits who know.”

“You’ve joined the ranks of the dead,” They all said.
“You’ve joined the ranks of us ... dead.”

Saturday, February 18, 2006














Bread and Roses, 1912 Textile Mill Strike





Lawrence, Mass. – My Hometown




by Richard E. Noble
On Tuesday, January 11, 1912 in the industrial mill town of Lawrence Massachusetts, a group of Polish Immigrant woman who were working at the Everett mills on Union Street, shut down their machines and walked off the job. Within hours 25,000 co-workers had joined them in what would become the biggest textile strike that had ever been staged in America.
Lawrence, Massachusetts was a planned community, built specifically for the textile industry in 1845. Its main attraction was the availability of water power, primarily the Merrimack River and its many tributaries. Like its sister city up the river, Lowell, it was going to be a utopian village designed on the model of New Lanark, established in Scotland by the social reformer Robert Owen. But, by the year 1912, the dream had faded. Far from being an industrial paradise, both Lawrence and Lowell by the year 1912 were considered by many to be “industrial blots, pestiferous and diseased”, sustained on the starving, over-worked backs of woman and children. The mill owners had evolved in sixty some years, from humanitarian and utopian idealists to Robber Barons.
Lawrence, known as the “Immigrant City” was at the time of the Bread and Roses Strike about 85,000 strong. Thirty-seven percent of that 85,000 had arrived in the previous ten years. Most had been lured to the area by advertisements abroad, placed by mill agents, touting streets of gold and money and jobs in abundance for everyone. More than half the population of Lawrence was directly involved in mill work. The population breakdown went something as follows; 21,000 Irish, 12,000 Franco American, 8000, Italians, 6,000 Germans, 3,000 Lithuanians and Polish, 2,700 Syrians, 2,500 European Jews, 2,300 Scots, and a small group of blacks who had settled there after the Civil War. There were only 3,000 of its 85,000 residents that were born in the United States. Many notables visiting the Lawrence area were shocked by the conditions of squalor and poverty.
Elizabeth Shapleigh, a physician, had conducted a mortality study. She found that every third person standing in her line in Lawrence was dying from tuberculosis directly related to dust and fiber and breathing conditions at the mills. One third of the mill workers died before the age of twenty five, and a large number of children who had started working in the mills before becoming teenagers didn’t survive their teenage years. Seventy five percent of the workers in the Lawrence mills, ended up dying from mill related causes.
The average mill worker earned about $9.00 a week. The average rent was $3.00 per week. Most workers were barely getting by, many were starving. The tenements were stacking people up, six hundred to the acre. At Fall River sixteen tenements housed 500 human beings. They had one privy. In Lowell the tenants had to carry their garbage and excrement to a deposit station. Miscarriages were everyday. Conditions in Manchester, New Hampshire were said to be even worse than the horror reported in the working class neighborhoods of Manchester, England. American workers started working at an earlier age and died a decade sooner.
A worker could be fined 25 cents for being five minutes late; one dollar for eating at the loom; 25 cents for taking time to wash one’s hands, doing inadequate work, sitting down or taking a drink of water. Some mill owners charged the workers for drinking water. Paydays were often irregular. An employee might wait 50 days to finally get paid for thirty. In some New England areas some workers were paid in company script redeemable at company stores. It was common practice to lock workers in their working area rooms. Crippling injuries were common place and incurable diseases precipitated by working conditions were everywhere.
Camella Teoli testified before congress about working conditions in the mills. Miss Teoli was barely a teenager when her hair was caught in one of the machines and her scalp was ripped off. She spent seven months in the hospital recuperating,.. .without pay.
Most kids worked in the mills and didn’t attend school. On an average day in New Jersey, of children registered for classes, you could count on over a million absentees. The ratio was, most likely, similar for Lawrence. Just up the road from Lawrence, in North Andover, mill owners were paying the “better class workers” who were of Irish, Scotch and English descent, double the wages of the more recent, Polish, Lithuanian, Syrian, French Canadian and Slave immigrant mill workers in Lawrence.
The state legislature had finally stepped in to try and assist the desperate and helpless woman and children working in the mills. They passed a law limiting woman, and children under sixteen, to a maximum of 54 hours per week. This was a two hour reduction from the previous average of 56 hours per week. The mill owners obeyed the law but added a touch or two of their own. Since the mills could not run without the woman and children who comprised over 50% of the worker population, they cut all worker hours to 54. They increased the production so that the same output would be accomplished in the shorter hours. And they deducted two hours pay from everyone’s pay checks. Naturally they were not going to pay people for working 56 hours when they had only worked 54. At the same time the American Woolen Company, the largest group of mills in the area, was paying its share holders 12% on their investment. Shares that had been bought at $75 were worth $3,800 in just a few years. William “Billy” Wood who owned American Woolen claimed to have so many automobiles that he couldn’t keep track of them. In 1910 the American Woolen Company announced profits of $3,995,000.
The Wood Mill was built in 1906. Each of the wings of its main building stretched for a half mile along the Merrimack River and canals. Wood also owned the Ayer, the Washington and the Prospect. Eventually, he owned mills all over the nation.
Billy Wood began his career as a office boy in the Wamsutta Cotton Mills in New Bedford. At age twenty-eight he went to the Washington Mills in Lawrence. He became a salesman for the company and by 1880 was earning $25,000 a year. His fortunes continued to grow, especially after marring Mister Ayer’ s daughter.
The American Woolen Company had thirteen thousand employees, itself. Lawrence was the worsted capital of the world. It was stated that Lawrence “weaved the worsteds for the world”. Worsted is made from weaving wool not cotton. At the time of the Lawrence strike 400,000 men, woman and children worked in the Textile mills of New England. The Boston Associates, the Essex Company, the American Woolen Company and a few other investment trusts were comprised of some of the richest men in America.
The two hour cut in pay amounted to just 32 cents. But 32 cents could buy a worker between three and ten loves of bread. “We will break this strike,” Lawrence mayor Scanlon announced. “or we will break the striker’s heads.” On Saturday, January 13, strike organizers Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannetti from the I.W.W., International Workers of the World, arrived. Scanlon called Governor Eugene Foss, a mill owner himself, for state troops. Five hundred soldiers were immediately sent into the city. Students from Harvard University were given extra credit toward their final exams to go down, and “have a fling at those people”. Harvard University president at that time was A. Lawrence Lowell.
Four days after the strike began most mills had armed guards and mill owners were advertising for “scabs”. The natives who were for the most part Irish, didn’t participate in the strike. Father James O’Reilly of St. Mary’s church who had in the past been a supporter of the mill workers spoke out against the strike. The Catholic church did not like the Socialist-Communist-atheistic I.W.W. Some of the workers at the mills were represented by the United Textile Workers. Their leader was John Golden. Golden and Samuel Gompers of the A.F of L. spoke out against the I.W.W. and their infamous leader, “one eyed” Big Bill Haywood. Both Golden and Gompers headed unions that supported craftsmen only. Both groups had been called upon in the past to intercede for mill workers, but were always a no-show.
The I.W.W. supported laborers as well as craftsmen, blacks as well as whites, and woman. The A.F. of L. did not support the strike and Golden actually advised his members to break the picket lines and go back to work. Though most English speaking workers and members of the craft unions did not support the strike, they didn’t break the picket lines. They simply stayed home and didn’t report for work. The A.F.of L., the United Textile Workers, the Catholic Church, local priests, the Irish, and native born English speaking Lawrencians didn’t support the strike. But on January 24 when Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn made their first appearance two weeks into the strike, over fifteen thousand mill workers greeted them down at the Common, a fifteen acre park, in the center of the town. It was said to be the largest gathering in the history of Lawrence.
Although the churches, and craft unions, and others didn’t support the strike, many did help in setting up soup kitchens and providing general aid to the strikers. The mill owners hired guards, strike breakers and hoodlums to instigate violence and stir up trouble that could be blamed on the workers. The strike leaders advised the workers to refrain from violence, because if blood is shed, it will most likely be your own, they were told.
Mayor Scanlon made further requests for troop support from Governor Foss. One thousand two hundred National Guardsmen were sent in. They housed themselves in the mills, set up search lights and placed machine guns on the factory’s rooftops. The bosses had also installed electric-wire fences and armed loyal employees. Lawrence was a city under siege.

On January 15 eight thousand strikers marched through a snow storm to stop “scabs” from entering the Washington and Wood mills. By the time the strikers got to the Prospect Mill they were fifteen thousand in number. At the Atlantic and Pacific mills the militia finally stopped them with high pressure fire hoses. At another gathering National Guardsmen waded into the crowd and the strikers had their first death. A young Syrian youth, about twenty years of age, by the name of John Ramey was bayoneted in the back. He spent two weeks in the hospital and then died.
The Bread and Roses strike of 1912 goes down into the history books for a number of reasons. One was because of the prominent part played in it by women. Helen Gurly Flynn, originally from Concord New Hampshire was, as mentioned, a major force in the I.W.W. But there were a heep of others; Josephine Lis, Annie Welzenback, Sarah Bagley, Jennie Collins and Mary Kerney O’Sullivan to mention but a few. But the regular working women and working mothers were the real heroes. Prosecutor Douglas Campbell commented, “It takes but one man to overcome ten men, but it requires ten men to manage a single woman.” The women laid down on the sidewalks and in the streets. They were pushed shoved and clubbed. Police Chief John J. Sullivan defended the violence of his bullying patrolmen by stating that the women had it coming to them. Headlines in the local newspapers read, humiliatingly; Man intimidated by women pickets, Woman fined 20 dollars for assaulting and officer, Jennie Radsiarlowitz convicted for intimidating man. - Finally the police outdid themselves in the most shocking embarrassment of all.
Due to the growing escalation in violence, striking parents, at the suggestion of union leaders, decided to send their small children away from the area. It was Washington’s birthday. The small children being packed off at the train station created such a stir of sympathetic, union publicity that marshals declared such action illegal. Colonel Sweeter of the National Guard had placed Lawrence virtually under marshal law. They charged the parents with “neglect”. One hundred and fifty children had been sent to New York and Margaret Sanger, later to become famous as organizer of the National Birth Control League, organized the committee to supervise the children.
News of the Lawrence strike spawned huge demonstrations in support of the strikers in London, Rome, Bern and Budapest. On Saturday, February 24 the woman of Lawrence defied the Marshals order and brought more of their children down to the train station on Broadway. When the woman tried to put their children onto the train the police wadded into them with their billyclubs. They struck children and women alike. Bertha Crouse, a pregnant striker, was clubbed into unconsciousness and consequently lost her baby.
In another incident Annie Lopizzo was shot and killed. Witnesses said that it was policeman Oscar Benoit who had done the killing. Benoit had been stabbed and immediately began shooting into the crowd. The police arrested Joseph Caruso as the murderer, then picked up Ettor and Geovannitti as accessories. Ettor and Geovannetti were accessories because they were the leaders of the “illegal strike conspiracy”, organized in restraint of trade and the obstruction of private property rights, as outlined in the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Neither men were present at the scene of the crime. Caruso, as it turns out, was not present at the scene of the crime, either. But the three men were not lonely at the city jail and elsewhere. Hundreds of strikers, many of them women, had
been arrested and were cooling their heels with broken bones and busted heads.
Helen Keller came to Lawrence and spoke out in favor of the release of Ettor and Geovannetti. A stash of dynamite had also showed up, mysteriously, in a shoe store next to where Joseph Ettor picked up his mail. An investigation ensued and Ettor and Giovannetti were cleared of any “dynamite” charges when it was discovered that an ex-alderman and son of a former mayor by the name of John Breen had actually planted the dynamite in the shoe store himself. This admission of guilt was promted from Mister Breen when it was discovered that he had wrapped the dynamite in a subscription magazine or newspaper with his name and address printed on the material.
All this negative publicity caused “Captain Billy” Wood to have a change of heart. He offered the workers a 5% wage increase even though the company, according to him, was going through stressful times and making nothing in terms of profit. A few days later it was announced that American Woolen had a surplus of 11.5 million and would be paying dividends to its shareholders of 8%. Captain Billy was also charged in the dynamite conspiracy. Supposedly, Wood had hired Breen to do the dirty work. Breen had an unexplainable payment receipt from Mister Wood in his possession. Breen was eventually fined $500 for his part in the shenanigans. The charges against Captain Billy were dismissed. Ettor and Geovannetti remained in jail even after the strike was settled.
After two months the strike finally ended. All the negative publicity; the beating of the women and children at the train station; the beating and forced abortion of Burtha Crouse; the killings of Anna Lopizzo and John Ramy; the dynamite affair and the Breen confession; the unexplained check paid to Breen from Billy Wood; all these events had undermined the mill owners objectives. They gave the workers pay raises between 10% and 20%; they hired strikers back without reprisals; and they eliminated their corrupt piecework practices.
The Bread and Roses Strike not only sent shivers throughout the local business community, but it panicked mill owners throughout the nation. Textile workers and industrial workers all over the nation received wage increases. The Bread and Roses Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts goes down in the history books as a turning point in labor management relations. Nevertheless, many strikers who were imprisoned and charged unconstitutionally, without trial or representation, were forgotten in their jail cells. Some remained in jail for up to two years.
Ettor and Geovannetti remained in jail also. The charge of conspiracy and accessories to murder remained against them. The penalty was death. Big Bill Haywood immediately organized the mill workers on the two men’s behalf. In September a grand jury secretly indicted Haywood and several other strike leaders under similar charges; Haywood left Massachusetts. After eight months of postponements the state finally set a date for the trial, September 30.
On September 15, 1912 there was to be a rally on behalf of Ettor and Geovannetti on the Boston Common. Rumor had it that Haywood was going to sneak into town and make a speech at the rally. The Boston Police were alerted. Big Bill made his appearance successfully. He gave a riveting speech to a crowd of over twenty thousand workers. Haywood demanded that Ettor and Geovannetti be released, if not, a strike would be re-established. The jail doors would open or the mill doors would close, chanted Haywood. After his speech, Haywood inadvertently slipped into the back seat of a waiting unmarked police car instead of his get away car. He was arrested and booked. What was he being charged with, the newspaper men asked him. “They tell me I’m charged with conspiracy. I don’t really know what kind of conspiracy but I think it is a conspiracy to get more to eat.”
Haywood was now on trial once again for his life. The plot failed. In a trial that took place in Salem, Massachusetts, charges were dropped for lack of evidence and all four men were finally released after eleven months of negotiating. The victory of the belligerent and warlike I.W.W. sent mill owners and industrialists running to more accommodating and sympathetic union organizations. The A.F. of L., the United Textile Workers and others had a line of businessmen at their doors. Many businessmen even solicited the more non-violent unions to come in and organize their workers. The times, they were a changing.

1 Belles of New England, William Moran.
2 The Rise of Industrial America, Page Smith.
3 Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson.
4 Roughneck, The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson.
5 Roughneck, Peter Carlson.
6 Books used in the research of this essay include; “The Belles of New England”, William Moran; “Roughneck”, Peter Carlson; “American Economic History”, Harold Underwood Faulkner; “The Growth of the American Republic”, Morrison and Commager; “Labor Problems in American Industry”, Carroll R. Daugherty; Bread and Roses, 1912; “The Robber Barons”, Matthew Josephson; “A History of American Labor”, Joseph G. Rayback; “The Rise of Industrial America”, Page Smith; “Images of America”, Volume I and II, Ken Skulski, Eartha Dengler, Katherine Khalife; “The Beards New Basic History of the United States”, Charles A., Mary R. and William Beard: “The Course of Industrial Decline”, The Boott Cotton Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts 1835-1955, Laurence F. Gross; “The Rebel Girl”, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; “Hobo-ing
America”, Richard Edward Noble.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Capitalism or Save Your Butt-ski




Capitalism or Save Your Butt-ski?

by Richard E. Noble

The Russians are in big trouble - not only their economy, but the whole social structure has failed. Their leaders have decided that Capitalism is the cure. They are now out in the streets and in the villages trying to explain Capitalism to the workers and the peasants.

First the Kremlin’s right-hand man in Agriculture, Igor Topofthepileski heads out to one of his failing collective farms. He pulls the farm supervisor, Alexev Nobodyov over to the side.

“Alex, old pal, how would you like to buy this place?”

“Buy this place, Mr. Topofihepileski; but how could I do that sir? I have no money.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, Alex my friend, the Government is going to loan you the money.”

“The government?” Alex inquires, dubiously. You see, Alex is a little leery of the government. It wasn’t too long ago that the government came and took his granddaddy, shot him in the back of the head and pushed him - and a few thousand other peasants from the village - into a trench on the outskirts of town. Alex has also had cousins and relatives who vacationed in Siberia a few winters back. He has had friends who were executed for improperly counting potatoes and others who were arrested for stealing manure from government cows and smuggling it out onto their hidden vegetable gardens in a clearing in the woods. So, old Alex - who is a patriot, nonetheless, doesn’t get all teary-eyed and all choked up when they play the Russian National Anthem or when he hears the word government mentioned.

“Oh yes, yes Alex, my comrade good buddy, the government will loan you the money. We now have the KZB, much like American SBA. You get the money from the KZB and you buy the farm.”

“I buy zee farm with dee money from the KZB? And how do I pay this money back?”

“Alex, Alex. . . dat’s easy one; you grow potatoes and then you sell them. You make lots of money. You become rich, like American farmer. You buy Winabago and travel around all summer - see Stalingrad and Moscow.”

“I see, I see Mr. Topofthepileski, but who do I sell the potatoes to?”

“No problem Alex - you sell your potatoes to the government. We will buy all of your potatoes. You will make lots and lots of money.”

“Well, I don’t know; I don’t think so. What if the money that I owe to the government for buying the farm is more than the money that the government gives to me for the potatoes?”

“Alex, Alex - what a question! How silly. You will get plenty of money for your potatoes. You are the best potato grower in all of Russia. You and your wife are potato growing maniacs. You two know potatoes from K to Z. Soon there will be McGorbachev’s fast burgers all over Russia. They will sell tons of Russian fries.”

“Yes, that is true, but you see, it doesn’t matter how much I know about growing potatoes when the dirt is all used up. The last fourteen years, no matter what I do, all the potatoes turn out the size of Chinese ping-pong balls. You think that McGorbachev’s fast burgers will sell Chinese ping-pong fries?”

“Alex, my friend, you have ping-pong fries because you do not have good fertilizer. The government will sell you good American fertilizer. It is the best fertilizer ever made. It comes from only prize American Brahma bulls.”

“And I buy this fertilizer from the government?”

“That’s right!”

“This is first prize Brahma bull manure?”

“That’s right!”

“I don’t know? This sounds like a lot of buying to me, and not much selling. I buy farm; I buy American Brahma bull fertilizer. Look at this Mr. Topofthepileski - look at this equipment? Look at this old Boris-Darling tractor? This tractor is older than Russian peasant poverty. You see this potato sorter over here? It is a pile of junk. I’ve got it tied together with three miles of old concentration camp wire. I’ve got no wrenches, no tools - this whole farm is polack-rigged. Everything is falling apart. The Babushkas won’t even climb on to this potato sorter. I must drive the tractor myself. And fuel? - what about petrol for the tractors? What about the broken down old engines? Where do I get those things?”

“You buy it.”

“I buy it? For year after year after year, I ask you for fuel; you say that you have none. Now you loan me money and I buy it? You had it before when I needed it, and you wouldn’t give it to me? Now you have all that I need and I just buy it? How is this possible? What are you talking about?”

“Alex . . . calm down, calm down. Let’s go back to the house and have a Vodka, hey?”

“Sure. . . why not.”
(Back at the Farmhouse)

“Alex, look at this house. For years you live here, right?”

“All my life.”

“All your life . . . all your life you live right here, but this house belongs to the state.”

“That’s right. And if the state wants it back; they can have it. Look-a-here; you see these roof rafters? They are all about to crumble. This is a Khrushchev built house. The government had to prove to the people that it could build houses - they built ten thousand houses in one week. None of these houses are any good; not worth a plug ruble - junk - ten thousand piles of junk! So you want this house back? You take it. Me and the Mrs. will go live in a hole in the woods - that would be as good as this house.”

“No, no Alex, the state does not want this house back.”

“No?”

“No. We are going to sell it to you.”

“You are going to sell it to me?”

“Correct-ski. . . my good buddy, Alex.”

“But I have no money.”

“We loan it to you.”

“KBZ?”

“Right.”

“And I pay you back from all the money I make selling ping-pong fries to McGorbachev’s fast burgers?”

“That’s right, Alex - now you are getting it.”

“What about all of the other workers on the farm? I can not grow even ping-pong fries without their help. How do they get paid?”

“You pay them.”

“I pay them?”

“That’s right.”

“And where do I get the money, from the KBZ?”

“No, no Alex. . . ha ha ha, you are getting confused. You will have lots of money
left over from selling potatoes.”

“Wait a minute . . . wait a minute here. The KBZ gives me the money because I have no money? I buy the farm? I buy the equipment? I buy the tools? I pay all the workers? I do all of this paying by selling potatoes - potatoes that I haven’t been able to grow for the last fourteen years - back to the state for McGorbachev’s fast burgers and Russian fries?”

“That’s right Alex, and you become rich like all American farmers.”

“Well, Mr. Topofthepileski, this is all very interesting, but, you know, I think that these American farmers are much smarter than I am. I’m only a simple Russian peasant. I do not understand all this American Capitalism. Maybe you send me over to America and I can talk with some of these American Capitalist farmers. Maybe they can teach me how to become rich American-type farmer?”

“Alex, Alex? You do not have to go to America. We will teach you right here in Russia.”

“No, I don’t think so. Maybe you go outside and allow me to talk this over with my wife.”

“Sure Alex, sure - take all the time you like.”
(Topofthepileski goes outside while Alex Nobodyov explains new American Capitalism to Nohavemopka, his wife.)

“I don’t understand, Alex, what is this new Russian Capitalism?”

“Well, Nohavemopka, the state, which consists of Mr. Topofthepileski, comrade Betteroff and all the Welloffskies have destroyed all the land; they have let all of the equipment, barns and farmhouses run down to the point where nothing works and everything is worthless. They have taken all of the profits over the last hundred years and built themselves Dachas in the suburbs, and put all of their gold into foreign bank accounts; they have exploited all of the mines and factories, and worked all of the people to skin and bone; while they have all grown fat, we have all been forced to steal ping-pong potatoes for our borscht; their friends at the bomb and bullet factories have made so many bombs and bullets they have run out of places to store them; in the last war more Russians wouldn’t fight, than would fight - if no Russians will fight for Topofthepileski’s Dachas in the suburbs how will they make room for more bombs. They can’t sell the old bombs because everybody wants the new bombs from America, They spent all of the peoples money on all these stupid bombs. Now, they can’t pay anybody wages; they can’t feed anybody. They know that it is only a matter of time before the people rise up and their heads will be on the chopping block. So instead they are going to give you and me a bunch of worthless rubles. They are going to sell me this worthless pile of junk that they call a farm. If, by some miracle, I am able to grow potatoes, they will pay me what they have always paid me - nothing! But, if I fail, and I grow no potatoes or I grow another crop of worthless ping-pong fries; then when the people have no money and no food; then when the people go to Moscow and to the homes of Mr. Betteroff and Mr. Topofthepileski; all of them, including the Welloffskis, will point their fingers at Alex and Nohavemopka and tell all the enraged people: “Don’t blame us for your lack of food. We do not own the farms. It is people like Alexev Nobodyoff and his wife Nohavemopka who own all the farms. They must be hiding all of your potatoes under the farm house and stealing the money. If you want to chop off anyone’s head, you should chop off Alex’s and Nohavemopka’s heads - not ours!

“This man is crazy, Nohavemopka. He thinks that we are stupid. As it is now we have a roof over our heads and each week potatoes or no potatoes, we get our check. We have nothing but we pay nothing to nobody. Instead of living in this dumpled down house for free, they want to sell it to us. Then we must work even harder to pay them the money. They call that America-style mortgage. They sell us the land and if potatoes don’t grow, you and I and all the other workers still starve to death, but Mr. Topofthepileski and his friends will not be blamed. They know that I can not grow potatoes on this ruined land with all this junk equipment. Potatoes? Fourteen years we have Chinese ping-pong potatoes. Now they are going to sell me special first prize American Brahma Bull Manure - sounds like same old Russian bullshit to me.”
(They go back outside and join Topofthepileski in the front yard.)

“Mr. Topofthepileski’? Nohavemopka and I have decided that we do not want to buy the farm - free KBZ money or not. You sell it to another sucker. . . I mean peasant, okayski?”

“You don’t know what you are missing, Alex. This could be the chance of a lifetime for you. You could become multi-rubleaire. Boris Halfassski has already told me that he would like to buy this farm. You will be working for him one day, maybe, if you don’t jump on this opportunity?”

“That is good; that is good. I like Boris Halfassski - but in the mean time, Thursday, I get my check, right?”

“Oh yes! Oh yes, don’t worry. Your money is safe with us. As good as being in American 401K or Savings and Loan ... It is as good as TWA pension plan; No sweatski, Alex baby, your check is in the mail.”