Sacco and Vanzetti (and Berardelli and Parmenter)

[FourthBase]

Endorsing the outcome while defending and repeating the premises that led to their prosecution is a defense of their unfair trial.

So yes, you are.

Did. Not. Do.
Read. Again. Please.

If the premise is that Sacco and Vanzetti were influential "card-carrying" Galleanists...
Then, yeah. I stand by that premise. As an internet message board opinion.
Not as a verdict on a jury in a courtroom. Which, as I said, would differ.
If I had been on their jury, I could have very possibly acquitted them.

[Joe Hillshoist]

"Structural violence" is a term that badly needs reviving.

http://www.structuralviolence.org/structural-violence/

[Joe Hillshoist]

I read this:

Figured this was worth its own thread, just in case anyone here thought of Sacco and Vanzetti as some kind of heroes, or as pure victims of a miscarriage of justice. They weren't. They sucked. I hope they rot in Violent Idiot Hell. They were proud Galleanists. In other words, they were terrorists. They advocated for mass murder as a solution. They were stupid scum. Did they have a beef? Fuck if I care.

as you defending their unsafe conviction and judicial murder.

This bit in particular:

I hope they rot in Violent Idiot Hell.

reads like a celebration of their death.

I dunno what you meant when you typed it or what you think you typed, but it came across as a defense of their unjust execution and a celebration of their death.

Its the first post in this topic. So when you say go back and reread what you wrote its pretty hard to get past that without reaching the reasonable and obvious conclusions.

[FourthBase]

I read this:

Figured this was worth its own thread, just in case anyone here thought of Sacco and Vanzetti as some kind of heroes, or as pure victims of a miscarriage of justice. They weren't. They sucked. I hope they rot in Violent Idiot Hell. They were proud Galleanists. In other words, they were terrorists. They advocated for mass murder as a solution. They were stupid scum. Did they have a beef? Fuck if I care.

as you defending their unsafe conviction and judicial murder.

I bolded the words that should be read. more. carefully.

First, yeah, I was overposturing with "Fuck if I care", because I actually do care a good deal about the right to a fair trial being violated, the legitimacy of their beefs, the inherent abomination that is any execution. I quickly made that clear enough, I think, in subsequent posts. But maybe not. They were victims, in one sense. But not pure victims. In another and in my personal opinion in a sense that overrides the other senses, they were victims of themselves, and worse they were victimizers, or at least wannabe victimizers. Which, I personally believe, is not cool, under any circumstance. No matter the grievance. Because, most of all, I believe there are better, unconsidered, underconsidered, unimagined, other ways. It is literally (see below) my signature here. The words of a famous destroyer of Nazis, Communists, and American civil liberties; but also the words of the unlikeliest peacenik visionary thinker of all time: "Is there no other way the world may live?" To be fair, they might more accurately be attributed to Malcolm Moos, one of the resident intellectuals at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, a (if not the) premier thinktank of its era, at its peak, in the world.

(I do not remember if there's an RI Consensus on that thinktank's cred, whether spooky and bad, semi-spooky and ambiguous, unspooky (extremely doubtful, since, well, look at some of their featured speakers, lol) and a godsend to western civilization (still possible even so), or whatever else. Anyway, as both a freshman for one glorious semester at Hutchinson's Great Books college, and also as the disgraced (I can be an asshole, as you all know) short-term ex-boyfriend of the lovely daughter of the thinktank's hidden gem, John Wilkinson, I feel a fondness for the prospect that it was actually on the whole a self-determination-positive authentically-pro-democracy institution itself. But, maybe not, and I'd want to find that out, too.)

This bit in particular:

I hope they rot in Violent Idiot Hell.

reads like a celebration of their death.

Nope. Not really. And I explained this well, above. Even if lived to be 90 blahblahblah.

It was written as a condemnation of their life, or rather, their decisions.

I dunno what you meant when you typed it or what you think you typed, but it came across as a defense of their unjust execution and a celebration of their death.

Yeah, this would not be the first time I explain it so: See above, upthread.

Its the first post in this topic. So when you say go back and reread what you wrote its pretty hard to get past that without reaching the reasonable and obvious conclusions.

But, what if we were conversing in person, a free-flowing conversation, like a Heracleitan river, contexts better-comprehended and occasionally renewed as the conversation advances through time. Still in another sense the same river, though. The gists accumulate into an identifiable personality. If one can hear a voice by simply and only ever reading words, then while we might only ever be strangers in real life, at least if we could hear each other's virtual voice as closer to the actual voice of actual human beings like the actual human beings we are, that'd be cool. In lieu of ever actually hearing our real voices, we could at least imagine the voice of the kind of casual acquaintance we all surely talk with who we have to be around and work with and grow up next to, some of whom we might not even like all that much, but to whom we afford a minimum of respect and close attention, anyway, maybe even some manner of the benefit of the doubt for those we get to know better through prolonged co-existence. Not a benefit of the doubt in terms of accepting claims, never. Only the benefit of the doubt as it might upgrade a Worst Possible Interpretation Machine to, say, a Slightly-Better-Than-Average Interpretation Machine. No? Yeah? Meh?

[compared2what?]

Not S &V, but it seemed to go here, because of the May Day labor history.

Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week

Republicans are trying to pass an "alternative" to overtime pay. This is really about taking away the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek. Will weekends be next? What about an "alternative" to paying workers at all?

House Republicans are pushing a bill that takes away extra pay for overtime, substituting "comp" time instead. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 is the law that brought us the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour workweek. This law does not prohibit employers from requiring workers to work over 40 hours. Instead, it gives employers an incentive to instead pay extra or hire more people, and gives employees a premium if they do have to work longer. (Note that this is also the law that brought us a minimum wage and outlawed child labor.)

There is proof that overtime pay works: workers like domestic workers and agricultural workers - jobs not covered by the FLSA - are twice as likely to have to work more than 40 hours in a week. And even with this law, Americans already work more hours than in almost any other industrialized country.

More at:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/1623 ... -hour-week

____________

AKA "Why I'm not beyond the right-left paradigm just yet."

They're just saying that so they can roll us all back to the 1890s, imo. "They" being the Kochs, probably. We'll all be working for them one (16-plus hour) day.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Tony Abbott releases workplace policy

Oppositon Leader Tony Abbott says his industrial relations policy will protect the pay and conditions of workers.

Tony Abbott announces the Coalition's long-awaited workplace policy. Picture: James Croucher Source: The Australian

LABOR has focused its attack on Tony Abbott's industrial relations policy, saying his push for recognition of non-monetary benefits in wage deals would allow bosses to trade "pizzas for penalties".

Tony Abbott today hit back today at what he called “bizarre” criticism of his IR plan, saying Julia Gillard had introduced the individual flexibility arrangements at the centre of the Coalition's policy, and all deals would be protected by Labor's better-off-overall test.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nationa ... 6639297078

(if you listen to the video you'll hear Eric Abetz, whose great uncle Otto was in the SS - at one time Hitler's translator and ended up doing time for war crimes.)

[Jerky]

Jeez, 4thBase. You really seem to be big on strong, dramatic statements of rigid absolutist and crystal-clear moral certainty these days. It almost seems like a case of protesting too much. Not that I'm making any specific accusations, mind you. But perhaps there's something about the case that gnaws and niggles away at you, secretly, deep down inside, and your reaction is just that... a reflex action, self-protecting, even if somehow sub- or un-conscious.

There's this thing called Socratic Panic. It's the fear that one will be held accountable, even put to death, over some unpopular belief or worldview that one might hold. Leo Strauss, the father of neoconservatism, claimed that most of the truly great philosophers since Socrates all suffered from Socratic Panic so much that they used quasi-cryptological methods to hide their "true" teachings in their works. If I were to subject your latest harangue to a Straussian analysis, I believe there might be grounds to say that you're secretly (again, maybe so secretly that it's sub- or un-conscious) a great believer in the righteousness of Sacco and Vanzetti's cause.

This, I believe, is underscored by your post's almost painfully ironic coda, wherein you suggest to any other politically aggrieved parties: "Go paint a picture or write a poem instead, or stage a peaceful mass protest, or write a book or publish a pamphlet, or do something only slightly illegal or immoral."

It's almost as if, by saying: "Go waste your time by doing something harmless and silly and pretty much guaranteed to be ignored and totally ineffectual", you're SECRETLY saying that it's actually pretty obvious that extreme injustice calls for extreme reaction to said injustice.

Just my 2 cents.

Jerky

Figured this was worth its own thread, just in case anyone here thought of Sacco and Vanzetti as some kind of heroes, or as pure victims of a miscarriage of justice. They weren't. They sucked. I hope they rot in Violent Idiot Hell. They were proud Galleanists. In other words, they were terrorists. They advocated for mass murder as a solution. They were stupid scum. Did they have a beef? Fuck if I care. I mean, sure, labor union whatever, Wall Street whatever, ethnic discrimination whatever, anarchist ideal whatever. That's all well and good. The bombs and guns and robberies and murder? Nah, screw that. Screw that to hell. A lesson for would-be revolutionaries today: Do not be Sacco and Vanzetti. Not just, "Do not get caught", or "Do not get railroaded by the justice system", no. Do not be physical-violence-idolizing assholes. Unless it's literally the Nazis or some such evil you need to battle to save lives from imminent destruction, go paint a picture or write a poem instead, or stage a peaceful mass protest, or write a book or publish a pamphlet, or do something only slightly illegal or immoral at the very worst, like leak a document or spray a slogan in biodegradable graffiti. RIP Alessandro Berardelli.

April 15, around 3pm.

In 1920, that's when some crew of thugs robbed and murdered Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter. It happened in South Braintree, in exactly the place where I've been buying groceries (pasta, vegetarian meat-substitutes, lemonade, etc.) for the last 17 years. Parmenter was a factory paymaster, buried with full Masonic rites. Berardelli, though, was simply a working-class Italian. For many decades, his death has been overshadowed -- if not ignored and utterly forgotten -- by champions of the working-class and defenders of Italian honor. Which, frankly, is a disgrace. He was murdered by either one crew of thugs, or another. Either some crew from an Italian mob, or another crew from that age's Italian anarchist equivalent of Al Qaeda.

"All disgrace should be forever removed from their names." Dukakis, in 1977, referring to a couple of Galleanists who contributed in spirit if not materially to a campaign of terror, murder, physically-violent sedition. Let's get real, though: Sacco and Vanzetti were a disgrace. Very much so. A disgrace to dissent and resistance, a disgrace to their ancestors and fellow Italians, a disgrace to all unequivocally-innocent people who've ever been on death row. Were they innocent of that particular shooting? Possibly. Did they get a fair trial? Probably not so much. Were they a disgrace? Absolutely. As were their bomb-dropping cohorts, as are the intellectuals who defended them unequivocally and have treated them like heroes since. Berardelli was a father, he had two young children, he worked for a living, and he never killed anyone or advocated for terrorism. The guys who probably murdered him...they're the heroes? Screw that.

http://www.southofboston.net/specialrep ... 0405.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galleani (May he burn in hell)

[FourthBase]

Jeez, 4thBase. You really seem to be big on strong, dramatic statements of rigid absolutist and crystal-clear moral certainty these days.

Nah, I just have principles, and I think principles mean something, is all.

It almost seems like a case of protesting too much. Not that I'm making any specific accusations, mind you. But perhaps there's something about the case that gnaws and niggles away at you, secretly, deep down inside, and your reaction is just that... a reflex action, self-protecting, even if somehow sub- or un-conscious.

Might be onto something. I may very well loathe Sacco and Vanzetti a little more than they deserve because as a descendant of Italian immigrants and as someone who could be categorized as a type of anarchist (a moderate anarcho-primitivist) who wishes to help counter an attempt to seize more control by the elite immiserators of the world's relatively-poor-but-not-so-powerless-after-all, I feel that my Venn diagram intersects with theirs a little. Plus, I live literally 5 minutes from, and have walked hundreds of times by without realizing, the exact spot where the robbery and murder and getaway took place.

There's this thing called Socratic Panic. It's the fear that one will be held accountable, even put to death, over some unpopular belief or worldview that one might hold. Leo Strauss, the father of neoconservatism, claimed that most of the truly great philosophers since Socrates all suffered from Socratic Panic so much that they used quasi-cryptological methods to hide their "true" teachings in their works. If I were to subject your latest harangue to a Straussian analysis, I believe there might be grounds to say that you're secretly (again, maybe so secretly that it's sub- or un-conscious) a great believer in the righteousness of Sacco and Vanzetti's cause.

Interesting. You might be right about this. I'm a believer in their intellectual beefs against the corporate slavemasters of their time. ("Slavemasters" being hyperbole, because, again, they did not have even remotely the necessary cause to initiate or incite violence as those who were actually slaves did against actual slavemasters.) I'm also a believer in the right to a fair and speedy trial, due process, and every other civil right enshrined in our Constitution. If someone tried to argue that Sacco and Vanzetti received a totally-fair trial, I would vehemently disagree and argue for the case that they most certainly did not. That does not mean, however, that I mourn their absence from the world. I'm a believer that the death penalty should be abolished, that innocent people have and will be murdered unless it's abolished, which should shock our nation's conscience to a standstill re: executions, and I believe that even the worst murderers in the world should not themselves be murdered, both according to the moral logic found in Camus's Rebel and according to the fact that solitary life in a Supermax is, for most human beings, a fate worse than death (although I am a skeptic myself that such a species of fate has ever existed). I may have overcompensated against revealing the extent to which I am a believer in those three things: Their intellectual beefs, their unfair trial, and their abhorrent execution. But, make no mistake, more than those three things, overshadowing and overriding them into relative irrelevance, is my hatred of their mindset and their tactics and the martyrdom of them that failed to make enough of a distinction between those preceding three reasons to support S&V versus the even better reasons to give barely a shit about S&V and to expend all that energy picking better martyrs, more deserving martyrs, martyrs of peace.

This, I believe, is underscored by your post's almost painfully ironic coda, wherein you suggest to any other politically aggrieved parties: "Go paint a picture or write a poem instead, or stage a peaceful mass protest, or write a book or publish a pamphlet, or do something only slightly illegal or immoral."

Also, I started a thread for brainstorming such ideas.

It's almost as if, by saying: "Go waste your time by doing something harmless and silly and pretty much guaranteed to be ignored and totally ineffectual", you're SECRETLY saying that it's actually pretty obvious that extreme injustice calls for extreme reaction to said injustice.

I violently disagree (pun intended, I abhor violence except for violently-good thinking and only when necessary, as it is here) about "guaranteed to be ignored and totally ineffectual", that's your inaccurate assessment only, cf. Martin Luther King, cf. Gandhi, cf. shitload other not-ignored and effectual peace-breeders and evil-fighters.

Secretly nothing. I do nothing secretly, ever. That, if I have any genius, if there's anything to admire about me, let it be that. I figured out how to beat the system by being as open as possible. As uncloseted as possible. Do I commend this tactic to everyone? Not unconditionally. There might be a few reasons to preserve secrecy, maybe a person is being relentlessly persecuted and has to go into hiding, for example. I would understand secrecy in that case, as well as many other cases, both political and especially private (although not ritual organizational secrecy, unless it's an oath to protect and serve, to defend and uphold the Constitution, and/or to defend the nation against all enemies from without and within). So, no, you made a mistake. I said nothing of the sort you think I "secretly" said. I have meant the exact fucking opposite of that, and nothing but. I am what I am. What you read is all there is to get. Rather, what I write. Don't do any "creative reading" in the future, please.

Just my 2 cents.

Jerky

Appreciated, sincerely.
But in this case it was more like a single penny.

[Jerky]

Thanks for the fully fleshed-out response. I was hoping you'd take it in the spirit that it was given, and you did.

Cheers!
yer old pal Jerky

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Just watched this on Netflix..

(2006 documentary)




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805604/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Directed by
Peter Miller

Cast (in alphabetical order) :

Henry Fonda ... Prof. Tommy Turner (archive footage)
Arlo Guthrie ... Interview / performance
David Kaiser ... Interview
Giuliano Montaldo ... Himself
Nunzio Pernicone ... Interview
Tony Shalhoub ... Sacco (voice)
Studs Terkel ... Interview
Mary Anne Trasciatti ... Interview
John Turturro ... Vanzetti (voice)
Howard Zinn ... Interview