'Holidays' and 'Quotes and Holidays' Don't ask, but in searching
for a commemoration piece, Emma Goldman's speech touches
so many issues of today, literally, that it had to head the list. I've
added some amazing writing by kids, compiled by a different
Emma. I think, but am no longer sure, it's Rosenthal. Enjoy.
Ed
.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Pearl" <epearlag@earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007
Subject: A gift of words from the Emma Goldman Papers!
----- Original Message -----
From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Subject: A gift of words from the Emma Goldman Papers!
To friends and supporters of the Emma Goldman Papers--
feisty fighters for "freedom, the right to self
expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant
things" --
On June 27, 1869 Emma Goldman was born. In 1917, during
the First World War she was imprisoned for speaking out
against the draft, and in 1919 she was deported to
Bolshevik Russia. Emma celebrated her 51st birthday six
months later--and received this message from Ben
Reitman, the Hobo activist who had been her lover and
the manager of her speaking tours across the U.S. for
almost ten years:
Its June 27 again.
Your birthday...
Man, may be unjust Governments cruel.
But time is always just and kind.
You will come to your own.
And your own shall receive you...
Brains, integrity courage are always rewarded...
You will come back.
As Wednesday, June 27, 2007 draws near, the staff of the
Emma Goldman Papers thanks you for helping us bring back
the documentary history of the daring Emma. To honor
this day, we send you a timely excerpt from Emma's
closing statement at her 1917 trial---expressing an
immigrant's complex relationship to patriotism:
"Gentleman of the jury, we respect your patriotism, we
would not, if we could, have you change its meaning for
yourself. But may there not be different kinds of
patriotism as there are different kinds of liberty? I
for one cannot believe that love of one's country
must... consist in blindness to its social faults, in
deafness to its social discords, inarticulation to its
social wrongs. Neither can I believe that the mere
accident of birth in a certain country or the mere scrap
of a citizen's paper constitutes the love of country. I
know many people--I am one of them--who were not born
here, nor have they applied for citizenship, and who yet
love America...Our patriotism is that of the man who
loves a woman with open eyes. He is enchanted by her
beauty, yet he sees her faults. So we, too, who know
America, love her beauty, her richness, her great
possibilities; we love her mountains, her canyons, her
forests, her Niagara, and her deserts--above all do we
love the people that have produced her wealth, her
artists who have created beauty, her great apostles who
dream and work for liberty--but with the same passionate
emotion we hate her superficiality, her cant, her
corruption, her mad, unscrupulous worship at the alter
of the Golden Calf...We say that if America has entered
the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must
first make democracy safe in America.
Greetings and hopes for better days ahead
from the Emma Goldman Papers
<http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman>
***
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Pearl" <EPearl@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004
Subject: Famous quotes...
It's been a tough week for those of us working for human rights and
social justice. I thought a bit of levity, evidence of the corrupt
education system that enables the u.s. war machine. for one can only
maintain the appearance of democracy that exists in the u.s. with an
uninformed populace, and that requires an inadequate educational system.
so laugh till it hurts, and then find a demonstration, launch an email,
a stone, hope, prayers, letters, books, poems. bear witness, talk to
your neighbors, hug a child, teach a child. plant (non gmo) seeds, build
bridges. never ever ever lose hope.
we are in this for the long haul. it's a marathon, not a sprint. we
have a huge machine to dismantle.
when i taught, i would often ask students to write down what they
thought they were saying in that strange daily ritual, that ritual lie,
conducted in classrooms across the u.s, in the recitation of the pledge
of allegiance. this email reminded me of that exercise. here is the
compilation of my favorite examples:
i pledge a legion to the flag of the united states of america and to the
republic of richard stands, one nation under guard (that was my favorite
one!) with invisible justice and that is all.
to quote graham nash: teach the children.
peace, justice and love, love, love,
emma
__________________________________________________________________________
The following excerpts are actual answers given on history tests and in
Sunday school quizzes by children in Ohio. They were collected over a
period of three years by two teachers. Kids should rule the world, as it
would be a laugh a minute for us adults and therefore no time to war or
argue.
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Ancient Egypt was old. It was inhabited by gypsies and mummies who all
wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the
Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened
bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on
Mount Cyanide
to get the ten commandos. He died before he ever reached Canada but his
commandos made it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. He was an
actual hysterical figure as well as being in the bible. It sounds like he
was sort of busy too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't
have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a young female moth.
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Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving people
advice. They killed him. He later died from an overdose of wedlock which is
apparently poisonous. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic
decline.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In the first Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and
threw the java. The games were messier then than they show on TV now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of
March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king.
Dying, he gasped out "Same to you, Brutus."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw for
reasons I don't really understand. The English and French still have
problems.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When
she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah!" and that
was the end of the fighting for a long while.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented
removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the
circulation of blood.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes
and started smoking.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper which was
very dangerous to all his men.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born
in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and
is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and
hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote
Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise
Lost. Since then no one ever found it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas
Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the
Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two
cats backward and also declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot
stand." He was a naturalist for sure. Franklin died in 1790 and is still
dead.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's Mother died
in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own
hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation
Proclamation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got Shot in
his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the
assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined
Booth's career.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number
of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in
his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous
composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half
Italian, and half English. He was very large.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf that he wrote
loud music and became the father of rock and roll. He took long walks in
the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in
1827
and later died for this.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions.
People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The
invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a
hundred men.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits but I don't know why.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Darwin was a naturalist. He wrote the Organ of the Species. It was
very long and people got upset about it and had trials to see if it was
really true. He sort of said God's days were not just 24 hours but without
watches who knew anyhow? I don't get it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Madman Curie discovered radio. She was the first woman to do what she did.
Other women have become scientists since her but they didn't get to find
radios because they were already taken.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Marx was one of the Marx Brothers. The other three were in the movies.
Karl made speeches and started revolutions. Someone in the family had to
have a job, I guess.
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