rigorousintuition.ca

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)

No. Come on.

How do you get from this...

Were they innocent of that particular shooting? Possibly. Did they get a fair trial? Probably not so much.

...to this:

The guys who probably murdered him?

________________

The entire damn point of the state's burden of proof being guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is so that it can't convict, jail and/or execute people it doesn't like for doing stuff they're not on trial for, such as opposing government policies.

That's not an abstract thing, ever. You lost freedom because of Sacco and Vanzetti. They didn't exist in a vacuum. They were part of a huge, epochal protacted conflict between haves and have-nots that didn't start with them.

I mean, sure, labor union whatever, Wall Street whatever, ethnic discrimination whatever, anarchist ideal whatever.

If you're in the 99 and not the one percent, you're where you are now because of what happened in the labor wars then. You should care. They're using all the same tactics and strategies. And almost all the same themes and appeals. The only major difference is that there isn't presently a left. It's sort of like 1913, plus a hundred years and minus anarchos/socialists.

Anyway. I wouldn't say "heroes." But I don't think anyone does. They might not have been attractive, inspiring, admirable people. But that's not a requirement for the presumption of innocence. They were martyrs. That was a loss, not a win. And the lesson is not: "Don't be Sacco and Vanzetti." It's not that I'm recommending it. But you might as well say: "Behave yourself, the bosses know what they're doing. Do you want to ruin the American dream for everyone, or what?"

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

I don't know if I'd go that far. But I'm not a fan. I'm more the Eugene Debs type, myself.

It was an antiwar thing then, too, you know.

People never learn.


___________

***And that might never have gotten to the point of Galleanist-style violence if the have-nots who made fair demands faily hadn't been being beaten bloody, killed, starved, executed and brutally suppressed for thirty years, although it's impossible to say, I guess. My point is more that the brutality didn't start with the anarchos. It started with the elites and the state.

Do not be physical-violence-idolizing assholes

Yeah true, and fair trials are an English concept anyway, obviously tyrannical and something der republic was sposed to protect you lot against.

Or something.

You don't know what happened then or who actually murdered Berardelli and Parmenter.. What you do know is that there are serious questions about the (legal) safety of a conviction that was used to secure their deaths.

Yet you are celebrating that based on their association with some jerk who liked blowing things up.

This is an anti fascist board and you are supporting the death penalty for two people based on their associations, despite multiple confessions by mob figures suggesting they were responsible for the murders and didn't have anything to do with sacco and vanzetti's political movement.

Nice one 4b.

They were proud Galleanists. In other words, they were terrorists.

You're as much a terrorist 4B - your federal government bombs the fuck out of the rest of the world with no legal justification to support its political aims and to influence those of the rest of the world.

Whats the difference?

Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Yet you are celebrating that based on their association with some jerk who liked blowing things up.

This is an anti fascist board and you are supporting the death penalty for two people based on their associations, despite multiple confessions by mob figures suggesting they were responsible for the murders and didn't have anything to do with sacco and vanzetti's political movement.

- Celebrating what? Not their getting an unfair trial. That was bad. But honestly? They were scum. Yes, all the reasons for their being outraged are worth remembering, and yes it's all eerily similar to today. Exactly one of my points: Sacco and Vanzetti didn't ruin any American dream, they ruined American dissent and resistance. They were outraged, as they should have been. As we should be. But they decided to solve the outrageous problem by advocating for and helping others commit murder. Were they guilty of shooting Berardelli and Parmenter? I said that it's possible they didn't. But it looks like they probably had a hand in it. Not only mob confessions there. Confessions and death bed testimony that, yeah, it was Sacco and Vanzetti. There was no total lack of evidence that they were guilty, too. Read the whole wiki entry. Read more about it, too, if you want. There was some exculpatory evidence, some shenanigans by the prosecutor, some bias and misconduct by the judge, for sure. But then, what do you call the defense attorney fiddling with the gun parts? The unfairness of the trial went both ways. Would I have voted to acquit? It's very possible. But if they had been charged with simply two counts of Being Murderous Assholes, then I vote guilty. I understand the importance of process. But there is a competing principle of justice. And what these guys becoming martyrs has done, is turn the face of wrongfully-convicted dissenters into a couple of loathesome douches. It spoils what ought to have been a unanimous campaign against the government persecuting dissenters, having those two be the face of it. It's as if OJ Simpson had become the face of a campaign against LAPD wrongdoing. Maybe the LAPD wronged him, sure. Process, I get it. Rights. But did that vile shit probably kill his ex-wife and a waiter? Yep. And any campaign using him as a poster boy would be ruined. Honestly, what the left ought to have done is noted the unfairness of the trial, made a few basic attempts to rectify it, and then moved on to other cases, to other dissidents who weren't bomb-making bastards. Maybe had a brief moment of silence for poor Sacco and poor Vanzetti, who might have only been standing next to his partner in robbery when Sacco shot those two, and maybe other shots came from the getaway crew assisting Sacco and Vanzetti. Wahhh. Poor guys. Don't really care. Choose better martyrs.

- If you think I would ever support the death penalty, you should do a search for my username and "death penalty", it'll probably bring up some stuff about how I rode a fucking bus from Boston to Atlanta in order to help the campaign to save Troy Davis. Troy Davis. Now there's a martyr. Almost certainly not guilty of the murder he was himself murdered for.

- Yes, they can rot in Hell all the same. No sympathy here, from me. Not for them. And I'm not alone. And that's why it's imperative to choose better poster children. Some legal injustices are not, ultimately, moral injustices. If there is such a thing as karma, Sacco and Vanzetti had the bad kind, in a bad way. If it wasn't that trial, it would've been another. They were expressly committed to creating the basis for another trial. Their friends bombed and slaughtered while they were in jail, on their behalf. They were evil. Evil people can be fueled by a good cause, if they respond in evil ways. The road to hell. They took it.

- I'm a terrorist? Ha! Oh, my government. Yeah, I am responsible for a government of strangers, thousands of unelected people, about 536 people for whom I only get to vote for three, and the only one who won is Elizabeth Warren, and I don't see her piloting any drones. What am I supposed to do? Ask my unaccountable government in the stranglehold of a ghoulish network of delusional national-security-hawks, "Please, sirs, no more bombing innocent brown children, pretty please"? Ask more firmly, more nicely? It is a kind of political nihilism, to hold every citizen equally responsible for any of the evil deeds of his or her leaders or neighbors. I mean, isn't that exactly the angle taken by, hmmm...Al Qaeda and Hamas? The government of America and Israel? "It's okay to kill some innocent civilians because...uhhh...they didn't try hard enough to stop their unaccountable leaders or unreachable neighbors from atrocities. They are all one people." Fuck that shit. Fuck essentialism. I am as responsible for what Obama does as I am for what some random kangaroo in Australia does. I can express myself, is all. If I see the kangaroo rummaging through some innocent dude's garbage, I can try to yell at it, if I were in Australia, and hopefully it hears me. If I see Obama authorize the cold-blooded slaughter of civilians in Pakistan who fit a ridiculously-vague and normal pattern, I can type an angry letter, post something clever and outraged here, and hopefully he hears it. Someday maybe I'll run for president, lol. I voted for myself last November. That's about as much as I, a nobody in America, can do. Pfff, terrorist. Are you shitting me? Uh, no.

I don't know if I'd go that far.

Let's not be cute, lol. You do know, right? And the answer is absolutely not, right?

It doesn't matter who started what against who when.
Galleani was an evil destructive son of a bitch. The end.

Are there any, say, fans of Martin Luther King here? Gandhi? Of course.
How on earth can one subscribe to the philosophy of King or Gandhi...
But not quite know if you'd go as far as the satanic Galleani?

FourthBase wrote:Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Yet you are celebrating that based on their association with some jerk who liked blowing things up.

This is an anti fascist board and you are supporting the death penalty for two people based on their associations, despite multiple confessions by mob figures suggesting they were responsible for the murders and didn't have anything to do with sacco and vanzetti's political movement.

- Celebrating what? Not their getting an unfair trial. That was bad. But honestly? They were scum.

Even if they'd done it, that would be questionable, imo. As a word choice, I mean. You're talking about people who weren't regarded as fully human or civilized by polite society.

Yes, all the reasons for their being outraged are worth remembering, and yes it's all eerily similar to today. Exactly one of my points: Sacco and Vanzetti didn't ruin any American dream, they ruined American dissent and resistance. They were outraged, as they should have been. As we should be. But they decided to solve the outrageous problem by advocating for and helping others commit murder. Were they guilty of shooting Berardelli and Parmenter. I said that it's possible they didn't. But it looks like they probably had a hand in it.

It's not difficult to make people look like they probably had a hand in something when you have the apparatus of the state at your disposal and months to put together a case that some lone individual is going to flounder around trying to overcome. And once that's fixed in place, everybody fits their views and interests around it. That's why the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt.

It's really not in your interests to get blurry about that. Plus, you don't have any idea whether or not they did it. They were Galleanists. They owned guns. They might or might not have been there. That's "probably"?

If the helping-people-commit-murder part is based on their being Galleanists: Try freedom of association, not guilt by it. Works better in the long run.

FourthBase wrote:

I don't know if I'd go that far.

Let's not be cute, lol. You do know, right? And the answer is absolutely not, right?

I meant the burning-in-hell part. I'm not vengeful.

But he absolutely doesn't represent the right way, imo, if that's what you're asking.

compared2what? wrote:

FourthBase wrote:Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Yet you are celebrating that based on their association with some jerk who liked blowing things up.

This is an anti fascist board and you are supporting the death penalty for two people based on their associations, despite multiple confessions by mob figures suggesting they were responsible for the murders and didn't have anything to do with sacco and vanzetti's political movement.

- Celebrating what? Not their getting an unfair trial. That was bad. But honestly? They were scum.

Even if they'd done it, that would be questionable, imo. As a word choice, I mean. You're talking about people who weren't regarded as fully human or civilized by polite society.

I'm half-Italian. Sicilian to be exact. Know who else was Italian? Alessandro Berardelli.
Sacco and Vanzetti wanted to blow people up, for whatever reason = Scum.

Yes, all the reasons for their being outraged are worth remembering, and yes it's all eerily similar to today. Exactly one of my points: Sacco and Vanzetti didn't ruin any American dream, they ruined American dissent and resistance. They were outraged, as they should have been. As we should be. But they decided to solve the outrageous problem by advocating for and helping others commit murder. Were they guilty of shooting Berardelli and Parmenter. I said that it's possible they didn't. But it looks like they probably had a hand in it.

It's not difficult to make people look like they probably had a hand in something when you have the apparatus of the state at your disposal and months to put together a case that some lone individual is going to flounder around trying to overcome. And once that's fixed in place, everybody fits their views and interests around it. That's why the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt.

It's really not in your interests to get blurry about that. Plus, you don't have any idea whether or not they did it. They were Galleanists. They owned guns. They might or might not have been there. That's "probably"?

If the helping-people-commit-murder part is based on their being Galleanists: Try freedom of association, not guilt by it. Works better in the long run.

Methinks you did not read the whole wiki entry, and are generally unfamiliar with the case?
Sacco and Vanzetti were active Galleanists, not just some silent passive sympathizers.

compared2what? wrote:

FourthBase wrote:

I don't know if I'd go that far.

Let's not be cute, lol. You do know, right? And the answer is absolutely not, right?

I meant the burning-in-hell part. I'm not vengeful.

But he absolutely doesn't represent the right way, imo, if that's what you're asking.

Well, I have an unorthodox vision of what Hell might be. I see a place where the evil suffer for what seems like an eternity. Perhaps only psychological suffering, being constantly reminded of their own deeds, for what feels like a million years. And then they get paroled into Heaven, purified, forever. Or something like that. An inescapable permanent Hell would be very unfair, intolerably unfair. Even for Hitler. We are all only human, ultimately. All once babies. Only one lifetime to get things right or wrong, with no practice or rehearsal, as Kundera wrote about.

That said, it was really only figurative, their rotting in Hell.

Vengeful? Yeah. Half-Irish, half-Sicilian. For that combo, I'm a fucking Gandhi myself, lmao. You should see my relatives, lol. But it's really more about justice. But, yes, I do appreciate your points about process, precedent, applicability, freedom.

If I got wind of even a single American standing up for Sacco and Vanzetti, I would shut down his or her entire city of residence so fast it would make your head spin.

stickdog99 wrote:If I got wind of even a single American standing up for Sacco and Vanzetti, I would shut down his or her entire city of residence so fast it would make your head spin.

I resent the implication, but the form was hilarious.

FourthBase wrote:

compared2what? wrote:

FourthBase wrote:Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Yet you are celebrating that based on their association with some jerk who liked blowing things up.

This is an anti fascist board and you are supporting the death penalty for two people based on their associations, despite multiple confessions by mob figures suggesting they were responsible for the murders and didn't have anything to do with sacco and vanzetti's political movement.

- Celebrating what? Not their getting an unfair trial. That was bad. But honestly? They were scum.

Even if they'd done it, that would be questionable, imo. As a word choice, I mean. You're talking about people who weren't regarded as fully human or civilized by polite society.

I'm half-Italian. Sicilian to be exact. Know who else was Italian? Alessandro Berardelli.
Sacco and Vanzetti wanted to blow people up, for whatever reason = Scum.

I was expressing an opnion about your word-choice, not about you.

Also:

There's no proof that they wanted to blow anybody up for any reason. People went around preaching armed resistance to the state in those days. And distributing leaflets doing the same. And having meetings discussing it in earnest, jargon-y terms. Every single member of such a group wasn't necessarily in on the bombings. Or aware of them. Or in favor of them. Same as now. The illegal stuff tends to be need-to-know.

What you know about them is: THAT THEY WERE GALLEANISTS.

That's not the same as: They were bomb-throwers/senders/scum.

Those were their political beliefs.

^^Talking about what was proven, only.

Methinks you did not read the whole wiki entry, and are generally unfamiliar with the case?
Sacco and Vanzetti were active Galleanists, not just some silent passive sympathizers.

Please see above.

I mean, what's Bin Laden's cook? Or his driver? Are they murderous scum?

How about gangs? Is every Crip a killer and drug-dealer, probably? How about every Blood? Every member of the Klan? The Aryan Brotherhood?

They have the same rights you do.

As I said in the Boston thread, proof is the gold standard, the only acceptable standard ultimately, an absolute requirement, in a courtroom. But, again, this is just an internet forum. Inferences abound. Educated speculation. Hunches. Extrapolation. Opinions based on half the evidence a jury should demand, opinions despite a certain amount of exculpatory evidence. Just opinions. Not an official verdict. They're long dead, anyway.

And with all that in mind: They were a disgrace. They wanted to blow people up.
Even if they only supported the actual-bombers with direct guidance, approval, comforts...
They were still: Disgraces. Anyone, be they Galleanists, COINTELPRO, Black Bloc...
Anyone who comes to the conclusion, "Hey, let's blow people up!" = Disgrace.
(With rare exceptions in dire, no-choice circumstances, a la WWII.)

compared2what? wrote:I mean, what's Bin Laden's cook? Or his driver? Are they murderous scum?

How about gangs? Is every Crip a killer and drug-dealer, probably? How about every Blood? Every member of the Klan? The Aryan Brotherhood?

They have the same rights you do.

Uhhh...yes! Same rights, yes! Scum? Yes!

I think you are confusing my condemnation of them with a denial of their rights.
I recognize their rights. Ultimately, their rights are my rights are your rights.
And yet, at the same time, I don't care all that much about them.
They had some kind of comeuppance coming, one way or another.
They were farrrrrr from good poster children for dissident martyrdom.
All of that is true, simultaneously. Rights? Yes. Care much? Meh. Scum? Yep.