Category Archives: General

#tbt Aldo Perego, Alfredo M. Bonanno, Massimo Passamani & Pierleone Porcu – Revelutionary Solidarity

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Introduction

The concept of solidarity is not only used and abused by the various reformist syndicalist and humanitarian movements and even power itself, it is also sadly emptied of any content by many anarchists. The levelling is such as to reveal a symbolic attitude worthy of the Church but which allows us to put our conscience at rest.

Counter-information and propaganda in the lead, demonstrations (true processions), then nothing, provoke a feeling of powerlessness, a pernicious frustration that sees justification open the way to resignation.

We discover that everything crumbles there where the mentality of the group and quantity thought it was strong. Nothing changes as we enter a vicious circle with mournful calls to a miserable bartering with the State one wanted to fight.

When individuals find themselves alone at night, no longer supported by “collective strength”, the arms of Morpheus transform the imprisoned comrades one wanted to support, to whom one wanted to express one’s solidarity, into a real nightmare with no escape.

So! Should we no longer show solidarity to imprisoned comrades given that it serves no end?

Never! A movement that is not capable of looking after its comrades in prison is destined to die, and that at a high price under atrocious torture.

The reflection must be made in other terms. What does it mean to express revolutionary solidarity? Basically the reply is not all that difficult.

Solidarity lies in action. Action that sinks its roots in one’s own project that is carried an coherently and proudly too, especially in times when it might be dangerous even to express one’s ideas publicly. A project that expresses solidarity with joy in the game of life that above all makes us free ourselves, destroys alienation, exploitation, mental poverty, opening up infinite spaces devoted to experimentation and the continual activity of one’s mind in a project aimed at realising itself in insurrection.

A project which is not specifically linked to the repression that has struck our comrades but which continues to evolve and make social tension grow, to the point of making it explode so strongly that the prison walls fall down by themselves.

A project which is a point of reference and stimulus for the imprisoned comrades, who in turn are point of reference for it. Revolutionary solidarity is the secret that destroys all walls, expressing love and rage at the same time as one’s own insurrection in the struggle against Capital and the State.

Daniela Carmignani

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Nozomi Hayase – Resistance Against Enclosure; Internet as Global Commons

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From Antiwar.com

This is a speech given at the Direct Democracy Festival at Thessaloniki on September 4, 2014 about the trend of decentralization creating a global commons on the Internet and the disruptive potential of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Thank you for inviting me to this event. I feel honored to be here in Greece, the birthplace of democracy.

I was born and grew up in Japan. I moved to the States as a young adult. I live beyond borders and don’t belong to one particular nation. In a sense, I find the Internet to be my home. Indeed if there wasn’t the Internet, I wouldn’t be here right now.

Often I find this online borderless world more real than the world outside. In this place called “real life”, we are separated and controlled by the interlocking power of nation-states and corporations. Every aspect of our lives is financialized and imaginations are captured by institutionalized hierarchies. Yet in the interconnected world of cyberspace, I find that imagination is not just surviving but thriving.

I here ask a question. Can the imagination of this virtual world help free the world that has been commodified? Tonight I am going to talk about the resistance against enclosures happening on the Internet and how the trend of decentralization in recent years is facilitating a reopening of the commons.

BitTorrent, Pirate Bay, Creative Commons, Linux and WikiPedia. Here we see the emergence of waves of uprising that challenge this culture of ownership and are weaving a new network based on sharing.

These waves of decentralization in the digital space perhaps best express the essence of social movements. A movement must move. It must flow. This movement of decentralization was built on net-neutrality. The Internet is anarchy, a true force for democracy. In this ecosystem, there is no governing center, no command from above. It enables unmediated peer-to-peer direct connection. In this decentralized system, power is distributed to everyone and there are no levers of control.

These new waves have begun disrupting outer central power that has been stagnating the flow of sharing and communication. In describing the reason behind her release of troves of classified documents, WikiLeaks whistle-blower Chelsea Manning said that “Information wants to be free”.

In 2010, with the rise of WikiLeaks, we saw the beginning of the decentralization of information. WikiLeaks was the birth of journalism for the global commons. With the idea that cryptography could liberate people, they aimed to open governments by exposing secrecy and lies that are used to steal from the public.

This stateless whistleblowing site opened the floodgates, freeing information that had been kept in hierarchical media institutions or centralized state control. Information as the currency of democracy has begun to flow.

But this was not just about information. Manning also said, “I cant separate myself from others, I feel connected to everybody like they were distant family”. In this outer world, we were taught to identify with national flags and look at other people across borders as either allies or enemies, but not as brothers and sisters.

Manning’s conscience was a spark that frees us from the biases of patriotism, imperialism and racism. It kindled an awakening to a larger sense of the commons. We began imagining each other anew based on the ground of equality.

This struck a chord throughout the Internet, bringing forth a new insurgence of justice. In the wake of the financial blockade of WikiLeaks, the online collective Anonymous stepped forward. Anonymous is an open source idea. There are no levers of control, no leadership, only the influence of thought.

They broke down the firewall of the corporate state and restored the right to freely assemble, this time on a global platform. Now everyone can associate with anyone in the world to create Ops and form a legion of shared ideas. The leaderless and egalitarian decision-making in IRC Chat rooms then morphed into a new insurrection in the streets during the Occupy movement. Open source protocols of consensus found resonance around the world and a shared resistance exposed the corruption of global power in the Anglo-Euro alliance that uses financial institutions as weapons of control.

In the West, the financial sector carries between 8 to 15 percent of the entire economy. Visa, Paypal, investment markets, Central banks and remittance industries monopolize the services of money printing and transfer, loans and wealth management. Some of the biggest corporations are running this financial system for their own gain. They charge massive fees, penalizing and basically steal money from the poor and transfer it to the rich.

Those occupy encampments at the centers of capital control gave birth to collective decision making through general assembly to challenge predatory capitalism. But then these movements were crushed by the brutal power of the state. Yet nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. The imagination for a decentralized future has emerged again in another wave of powerful resistance.

In 2008, a white paper published under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto put forward a proposal for a peer-to-peer digital cash without any central authority. Now many people know Bitcoin as a form of digital cash, but what is the significance of this invention?

The potential for elimination of central authority in virtually any communication or financial transactions brings the source of legitimacy back to the individual. We can associate with anyone and create a decentralized system of our shared interest.

The core of this invention is a decentralized network that can achieve consensus amongst strangers at a large scale. This is similar to the “In Each Other We Trust” that was practiced during Occupy. Now with the blockchain technology, this trust is distributed at a global scale.

Here we have an open source network of distributed trust where no single person or institution acts as an authority. Unmediated horizontal interaction and decision making allows us to interact, innovate, and build a new infrastructure for the world without permission.

The blockchain distributed trust network is a global square for the commons. This is a square that cannot be cleared by the state and works autonomously, free of outer control. Access to the network is open to everyone. Unlike banks, the blockchain responds to and welcomes all people indiscriminately regardless of their economic status, nationality or credit history.

The Bitcoin network brings people who are excluded into the circle of consensus. Currently only one billion of the world’s population have real access to the financial and banking system. There are 6 billion people that are unbanked or underbanked. Now through this technology, those who are excluded from this Western-controlled financial system can participate in the world economy on their own terms.

The protocol of this blockchain public square is open source and built through collaboration. The anonymous creator of this technology knew that in order to build and secure the system, there needed to be an incentive to maintain it. This is one reason why currency was embedded in the protocol as its first application. Bitcoin is a public asset ledger that creates peer to peer digital cash.

This is the world’s first transnational currency. It is the Internet of money, and it empowers everyone. In this value transfer network of the blockchain, the concept of the nation-state becomes obsolete. It also makes mafia banks like Goldman Sachs obsolete, as well as the wire transfer industries such as Western Union. We are beginning to take back the power and flow of currency that has for too long been privatized by corporations and central banks. This can eliminate a huge portion of these financial services that extract money from the world economy and then bring this power back into the hands of the people.

The people’s currency has already been used to crowd-fund parts of the global commons. For instance, it was used to collect donations for Edward Snowden and to circumvent the financial blockade of WikiLeaks to sustain this global 4th estate.

With this decentralized currency, we now become our own banks. What happens when we gain the ability to create money and keep it in our own hands? We can declare independence from hierarchical institutions that divide the world into consumer class and sweatshop slaves, into “first world” and “third world” and thus determine access to information, finance and resources.

Up till the invention of blockchain and this stateless currency, we have been systematically kept unfree. Decentralization of information weakened the central powers that control narratives. Because of social media, Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza and the reality of the police state in Ferguson can no longer be kept secret. More people are becoming aware of the continuous illegal wars in the Middle East. Yet, information was not truly liberated to become a revolutionary force that could meaningfully challenge state control.

Around the world, people have been protesting and demanding that governments end the wars. Yet, have these efforts really worked? Many of us have come to think that wars never stop and central control will always prevail. Why is this so? Because right now governments don’t have to listen to the people. They have the means to fund wars simply by printing more money.

Whenever we use the Euro and the US dollar, we are paying for wars, bailing out banks and funding state violence and oppressive regimes around the world. In this modern world, we might think we have moved away from monarchy. Yet, we have the fiat U.S. dollar as world reserve currency, declared on high acting as a King. What we really have is Exxon Mobile dollars or Chevron coins. We have been using Goldman Sachs coins that are disguised as national interest but are actually imposed upon us.

Central banks of the world stagnate the flow of money and use it as means of control to create war economies and enslave us through debt. Bitcoin has a fixed monetary policy. Its decentralized design has a potential to limit or even eliminates this power. If governments don’t have the ability to print money, they cannot buy tanks, missiles and endlessly fund wars. They cannot debase currency with austerity, taxation through rent seeking and support financial colonization by controlling borders and forcing remittance.

With blockchain decentralized trust, information as a currency of democracy could generate a bottom up power of consensus. We can have our own banks and money in our own hands and direct its flow. As we divest from the war economy, governments will have to beg people to pay for their war operations. They won’t get to print money for war. They will have to ask. Who here would want to join #OpUS – CollateralMurder or #OpIsraelGenocideofGaza?

The blockchain network creates a world of voluntary association and mutual aid. In this new world, the populace cannot be forced into debt if they don’t agree to it. We can now fund our own Ops with our own currency based on shared trust. We can now create our own communities based on common values.

We share the same problems. Let’s solve them together. The privilege of Western Europe and North America creates the poverty of the Global South. Bitcoin distributed trust delivers power to the periphery. We can unite to keep our network in solidarity for a decentralized future within the global commons. The next time people in Cyprus are hit with the crisis of austerity and their government tries to steal their money, they have a choice.

From Somali migrant workers transmitting money back home to American college students in debt servitude and Argentinians resisting currency default, we can all work together to help each other create our own flow of common wealth. This decentralized autonomous network has the potential to transform war economies based on debt into new economies based on our indebtedness to one another.

Like WikiLeaks challenging information apartheid or Anonymous taking on a state-corporatist ideology of separation and hatred, with the blockchain we can free ourselves from the shackles of monetary apartheid, financial extraction and segregation.

Information is now being freed. Currency is flowing like never before. With the blockchain, we don’t have to occupy the city square. Each simply can become a part of a network that is already creating a global wave of uprising through simply acting as if we are already free.

As the imagination begins to move, forces that try to squash its flow has infiltrated cyberspace. With extreme surveillance and censorship, the militarization and centralization of the Internet has been creeping into our lives. The Internet has become a battleground.

Yet, the Internet is anarchy. It has already unleashed a true revolutionary force: our imagination as currency of the global commons. This is our movement. This is our flow. It cannot be diverted, devalued or controlled. Can our imagination save the world?

The answer is up to us.

Thank you.

Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is a writer who has been covering issues of freedom of speech, transparency and decentralized movements. Her work is featured in many publications. Find her on twitter @nozomimagine.

Virginia’s Own Erich Gliebe Steps Down as National Alliance Chairman

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“Aryan Barbarian” Erich Gliebe told a Gloucester County Circuit Courtroom earlier this week,

“I have resigned all my positions with the National Alliance, I am no longer director or chairman.”

Gliebe had been embroiled in a bizarre lawsuit brought against him by something called the National Alliance Reform & Restoration Group, a splinter sect dedicated to his resignation. They had no idea this was coming though,

“This is the first time I’ve heard Mr. Gliebe is no longer the chairman,” NARRG’s lawyer, Daniel A. Harvill, told the court.

 

The lawsuit will be dropped.

Read Hatewatch’s full report on their site06-17-06

#tbt Ema Goldman – Anarchy and the Sex Question

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The workingman, whose strength and muscles are so admired by the pale, puny off-springs of the rich, yet whose labour barely brings him enough to keep the wolf of starvation from the door, marries only to have a wife and house-keeper, who must slave from morning till night, who must make every effort to keep down expenses. Her nerves are so tired by the continual effort to make the pitiful wages of her husband support both of them that she grows irritable and no longer is successful in concealing her want of affection for her lord and master, who, alas! soon comes to the conclusion that his hopes and plans have gone astray, and so practically begins to think that marriage is a failure.

The Chain Grows Heavier and Heavier

As the expenses grow larger instead of smaller, the wife, who has lost all of the little strength she had at marriage, likewise feels herself betrayed, and the constant fretting and dread of starvation consumes her beauty in a short time after marriage. She grows despondent, neglects her household duties, and as there are no ties of love and sympathy between herself and her husband to give them strength to face the misery and poverty of their lives, instead of clinging to each other, they become more and more estranged, more and more impatient with each other’s faults.

The man cannot, like the millionaire, go to his club, but he goes to a saloon and tries to drown his misery in a glass of beer or whiskey. The unfortunate partner of his misery, who is too honest to seek forgetfulness in the arms of a lover, and who is too poor to allow herself any legitimate recreation or amusement, remains amid the squalid, half-kept surroundings she calls home, and bitterly bemoans the folly that made her a poor man’s wife.

Yet there is no way for them to part from each other.

But They Must Wear It

However galling the chain which has been put around their necks by the law and Church may be, it may not be broken unless those two persons decide to permit it to be severed.

Should the law be merciful enough to grant them liberty, every detail of their private life must be dragged to light. The woman is condemned by public opinion and her whole life is ruined. The fear of this disgrace often causes her to break down under the heavy weight of married life without daring to enter a single protest against the outrageous system that has crushed her and so many of her sisters.

The rich endure it to avoid scandal — the poor for the sake of their children and the fear of public opinion. Their lives are one long continuation of hypocrisy and deceit.

The woman who sells her favours is at liberty to leave the man who purchases them at any time, “while the respectable wife” cannot free herself from a union which is galling to her.

All unnatural unions which are not hallowed by love are prostitution, whether sanctioned by the Church and society or not. Such unions cannot have other than a degrading influence both upon the morals and health of society.

The System is to Blame

The system which forces women to sell their womanhood and independence to the highest bidder is a branch of the same evil system which gives to a few the right to live on the wealth produced by their fellow-men, 99 percent of whom must toil and slave early and late for barely enough to keep soul and body together, while the fruits of their labour are absorbed by a few idle vampires who are surrounded by every luxury wealth can purchase.

Look for a moment at two pictures of this nineteenth century social system.

Look at the homes of the wealthy, those magnificent palaces whose costly furnishings would put thousands of needy men and women in comfortable circumstances. Look at the dinner parties of these sons and daughters of wealth, a single course of which would feed hundreds of starving ones to whom a full meal of bread washed down by water is a luxury. Look upon these votaries of fashion as they spend their days devising new means of selfish enjoyment — theatres, balls, concerts, yachting, rushing from one part of the globe to another in their mad search for gaiety and pleasure. And then turn a moment and look at those who produce the wealth that pays for these excessive, unnatural enjoyments.

The Other Picture

Look at them herded together in dark, damp cellars, where they never get a breath of fresh air, clothed in rags, carrying their loads of misery from the cradle to the grave, their children running around the streets, naked, starved, without anyone to give them a loving word or tender care, growing up in ignorance and superstition, cursing the day of their birth.

Look at these two startling contrasts, you moralists and philanthropists, and tell me who is to be blamed for it! Those who are driven to prostitution, whether legal or otherwise, or those who drive their victims to such demoralisation?

The cause lies not in prostitution, but in society itself; in the system of inequality of private property and in the State and Church. In the system of legalized theft, murder and violation of the innocent women and helpless children.

The Cure For The Evil

Not until this monster is destroyed will we get rid of the disease which exists in the Senate and all public offices; in the houses of the rich as well as in the miserable barracks of the poor. Mankind must become conscious of their strength and capabilities, they must be free to commence a new life, a better and nobler life.

Prostitution will never be suppressed by the means employed by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst and other reformers. It will exist as long as the system exists which breeds it.

When all these reformers unite their efforts with those who are striving to abolish the system which begets crime of every description and erect one which is based upon perfect equity — a system which guarantees every member, man, woman or child, the full fruits of their labour and a perfectly equal right to enjoy the gifts of nature and to attain the highest knowledge — woman will be self-supporting and independent. Her health no longer crushed by endless toil and slavery no longer will she be the victim of man, while man will no longer be possessed of unhealthy, unnatural passions and vices.

An Anarchist’s Dream

Each will enter the marriage state with physical strength and moral confidence in each other. Each will love and esteem the other, and will help in working not only for their own welfare, but, being happy themselves, they will desire also the universal happiness of humanity. The offspring of such unions will be strong and healthy in mind and body and will honour and respect their parents, not because it is their duty to do so, but because the parents deserve it.

They will be instructed and cared for by the whole community and will be free to follow their own inclinations, and there will be no necessity to teach them sychophancy and the base art of preying upon their fellow-beings. Their aim in life will be, not to obtain power over their brothers, but to win the respect and esteem of every member of the community.

Anarchist Divorce

Should the union of a man and woman prove unsatisfactory and distasteful to them they will in a quiet, friendly manner, separate and not debase the several relations of marriage by continuing an uncongenial union.

If, instead of persecuting the victims, the reformers of the day will unite their efforts to eradicate the cause, prostitution will no longer disgrace humanity.

To suppress one class and protect another is worse than folly. It is criminal. Do not turn away your heads, you moral man and woman.

Do not allow your prejudice to influence you: look at the question from an unbiased standpoint.

Instead of exerting your strength uselessly, join hands and assist to abolish the corrupt, diseased system.

If married life has not robbed you of honour and self-respect, if you have love for those you call your children, you must, for your own sake as well as theirs, seek emancipation and establish liberty. Then, and not until then, will the evils of matrimony cease.

Back2Stonewall: The 50th Anniversary of the Little Known First Ever Pro-Gay Protest – September 19, 1964

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Via Back2Stonewall:

Many people believe that the first protest against gay discrimination happened in Washington, D.C. and was led by the late, great gay activist Frank Kameny on April 17, 1965.  They are  wrong.

The first true protest against gay discrimination took place in the middle of Manhattan, on September 19, 1964 at the U.S. Army’s Whitehall Induction Center, in protest over the army’s failure to keep gay men’s draft records confidential.  New York City activist Randy Wicker organized it along with Craig Rodwell, who would go on to open the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore, joined by eight other members of the Sexual Freedom League, six of them straight,  gathered outside the army’s induction center at 39 Whitehall Street in New York City to protest the armed forces’s anti-gay discrimination and complicity in the MacCarthy era witch

Other marchers included Renai Cafiero,who would go on to become  one of the first openly gay delegates to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Other marchers included Nancy Garden and Jeff Poland of the New York League  for Sexual Freedom. Picket signs declared, “Homosexuals died for U.S., Too,” “Love and Let Love,” and “Army Invades Sexual Privacy.”

Let’s give some credit where credit is due and remember these often overlooked and brave people who stood up and spoke out out at a time when very few were willing to do so..

 You can see Wicker’s original photos from that event here

 

Joel Bitar is free!

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Political prisoner Joel Bitar has been granted his parole as reported on AnarchistNews.org and his blog, Locked Up Yet Liberated:

For folks who have been following my blog over the months you may have noticed that I hadn’t posted anything in a while. There was a reason. Back in mid-August my parole (parole for deportation) was granted!

A couple of days ago, 2 weeks after my parole eligibility day, I was driven to Niagra Falls by Canadian border police in handcuffs and dropped off on the U.S. side. U.S. Customs and Border Police then took my fingerprints, scanned my passport for outstanding warrants and eventually a door was opened and my freedom became official.

My parole conditions are basic: don’t associate with anyone with a criminal record, attend counseling and don’t attempt to return to Canada. If I return to Canada they can hold me for the duration of my sentence, which is September, 2015.

So it’s finally over, I can’t believe it. Getting out of jail is one of the best freaking feelings in the world. It’s also kind of overwhelming. Emotionally speaking, I got out of there relatively unscathed. I did pick up a bunch of scars, bumps and injuries (mostly all connected to jail soccer games, therefore totally worth it). All-in-all I feel the same. If anything the experience made me tougher, stronger and wiser. I hope to be a source of information and support for those who will inevitably be put through the prison system in the future.

I want to thank everyone who submitted parole letters on my behalf. The parole board received over 30 letters (they couldn’t believe it, they were shocked) and they read every single one. Each letter was integral in winning my freedom. Thank you to each of you who took some time to do that, I wouldn’t be free right now if it wasn’t for you.

I also want to thank everyone who corresponded with me over the past 7 months and I want to apologize to those whom I never replied. Each letter I received made my day a little brighter and allowed me to maintain emotional stability during dark times. My incarceration was a case study in how to do solid prisoner support work. The amount of solidarity I received throughout the process was outstanding and I wouldn’t be in such good shape right now without it.

So thank you, thank you, thank you folks. I can’t wait to give you all a hug when I see you. My heart is filled with so much joy right now.

Freedom is a must!!!

#tbt Eugene V. Debs – Statement to the Court

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September 18, 1918

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

I listened to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this prosecution, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon the Espionage Law as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the spirit of free institutions…

Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in a fundamental change—but if possible by peaceable and orderly means…

Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen I went to work in a railroad shop; at sixteen I was firing a freight engine on a railroad. I remember all the hardships and privations of that earlier day, and from that time until now my heart has been with the working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison…

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men.

In this country—the most favored beneath the bending skies—we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child—and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…

I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation ought to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all…

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.

This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic and political movement that spreads over the face of all the earth.

There are today upwards of sixty millions of Socialists, loyal, devoted adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color, or sex. They are all making common cause. They are spreading with tireless energy the propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching, and working hopefully through all the hours of the day and the night. They are still in a minority. But they have learned how to be patient and to bide their time. The feel—they know, indeed—that the time is coming, in spite of all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greates social and economic change in history.

In that day we shall have the universal commonwealth—the harmonious cooperation of every nation with every other nation on earth…

Your Honor, I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never so clearly comprehended as now the great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social justice.

I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are awakening. In due time they will and must come to their own.

When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

ACLU: The Dangerous Overuse of Solitary Confinement in the United States

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Originally posted here on the ACLU Blog

Over the last two decades, the use of solitary confinement in U.S. correctional facilities has surged.

Before 1990, “supermax” prisons were rare. Now, 44 states and the federal government have supermax units, where prisoners are held in extreme isolation, often for years or even decades. On any given day in this country, it’s estimated that over 80,000 prisoners are held in isolated confinement.

This massive increase in the use of solitary has happened despite criticism from legal and medical professionals, who have deemed the practice unconstitutional and inhumane. It’s happened despite the fact that supermax prisons typically cost two or three times more to build and operate than traditional maximum-security prisons. And it’s happened despite research suggesting that supermax prisons actually have a negative effect on public safety.

As fiscal realities are forcing us to cut budgets for things like health and education, it is time to ask whether we should continue to use solitary confinement despite its high fiscal and human costs.

This briefing paper provides an overview of the excessive use of solitary confinement in the U.S. and strategies for safely restricting its use.

Download the paper here: stop_solitary_briefing_paper_updated_august_2014.