Fair Use Blog

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule:

[Here is a translation of the controversial "Manifesto of the Sixteen," the document issued by Peter Kropotkin, Jean Grave and others, advocating support for the Allies and opposition to Germany in World War I. I had promised this to members of the Anarchist Task Force on Wikipedia quite awhile back, to go with their article on the Manifesto.]

The Manifesto of the Sixteen

From various sides, voices are raised to demand immediate peace. There has been enough bloodshed, enough destruction, they say, and it is time to finish things, one way or another. More than anyone and for a long time, we and our journals have been against every war of aggression between peoples and against militarism, whatever uniform, imperial or republican, it dons. So we would be delighted to see the conditions of peace discussed—if that was possible—by the European workers, gathered in an international congress. Especially since the German people let itself be deceived in August 1914, and if they had really believed that they mobilized for the defense of their territory, they have since had time to realize that they were wrong to embark on a war of conquest.

Indeed, the German workers, at least in their associations, more or less advanced, must understand now that the plans for the invasion of France, of Belgium, and of Russian had long been prepared and that, if that war did not erupt in 1875, 1886, 1911 or in 1913, it was because international relations did not present themselves then as favorably and because the military preparations were not complete enough to promise victory to Germany. (There were strategic lines to complete, the Kiel canal to expand, the great siege guns to perfect). And now, after twenty months of war and dreadful losses, they should realize that the conquests ...

Read the whole thing at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule.

This is a letter published in Vol. I, No. 2 of Revolt (dated January 15th, 1916), an Anarchist newspaper edited by Hippolyte Havel and published by the Revolt Publishing Association, 63 East 107th Street, New York, N. Y. The copy came to us by way of a facsimile edition published by The Match!, a journal of Ethical Anarchism, published from Tucson, Arizona. The letter was contributed by Robert Minor, and appears on pp. 6-7 of the issue.

British Labor shows fight. The army poison hasnt twisted their brains as much as their bosses had hoped for. It gives a fellow's heart a quicker throb to know that even in the mob-crazy war country, Labor can hold up its head and be Labor still. In times of peace, workers know that capitalists are their enemies; in time of war they are often fools enough to go fight their friend workers of another country for the sake of the capitalist enemies that they have been fighting at all other times. They've got to learn better, and it looks as though the English are learning. Hurrah for the English! (That means English Labor, not the Greedy British Empire, their greatest enemy.)

They are not perfect by a long sight, but neither are we, nor any other labor. They are improving, that's the point. They have got their bosses so badly worried as to be afraid to make a daring stand for their crooked privileges. It is really amusing. Go to it, friends; you may weaken and be fooled later on, but even then, the little start you have made in defying conscription will not be forgotten, and the world will profit by the example.

May we do as well here in America. It's our turn now. Conscription is at the door, the back door, trying to sneak in. Stand up, American Labor! You ought to do even better, without the disadvantage of actual war upon you. You haven't any country. No labor, anywhere, has any country. So don't be patriotic. Be Labor. And fight to GET your country, not to help your bosses hold it.

HAVE you a country? Then, why do you pay rent?

Robert Minor.

Now available thanks to bkmarcus at lowercase liberty:

This is from The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History by Justin Marozzi:

I entered Babylon with an invading army and now I leave in the last available Coalition convoy. The occupation forces are moving on. Camp Babylon is closing down and Polish and American forces are relocating south-east to the town of Diwaniyah. The desecration of Babylon, for the time being at least, is over.

I hitch a ride in one of the few unarmoured Humvees and immediately feel uncomfortably exposed. It’s too late to do anything about it. I’m lucky to get a seat. Body armour has been hung over the doors, almost as an afterthought, to provide a modicum of protection, but serves only to underline how vulnerable the vehicle is. We set off in an untidy straggle like a snake slithering away from trouble. The end-of-an-era atmosphere hangs heavily in the air. I am a short-term impostor but these men have been here for months in what will be a shameful footnote in Babylon’s history. Everyone knows the Iraqis can’t wait for the invaders to leave this place, the symbol of their country’s unrivalled history. Most of the soldiers couldn’t care less. They have just been doing their job.

[…]

‘Dudes, get this,’ says one of the sergeants in the Humvee, turning to me. I see a dusty self-portrait in his wraparound sunglasses. ‘Justin, you’ll like this, these guys are Brits. Check out our farewell-to-all-this-bullshit song.’

He pushes a button on his portable stereo and a tinny voice vibrates through the sand-smothered speakers. It is an anthem of my childhood. Boney M. 1978.

By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down
Ye-ah we wept,
When we remembered Zion …

The wind rushing through the Humvee snatches some of the music away, but I know the words. They have lodged in my memory and cannot be removed. The soldiers hoo-rah and whistle. ‘Rock ‘n’ roll, baby!’ one of them screams, kicking off another round of celebrations. Their time in Babylon has come to an end. They are a step nearer home.

The ‘Rivers of Babylon’ lyrics were directly lifted from Psalm 137, a melancholic meditation on slavery by the Jewish captives in Babylon, sitting on the banks of the Euphrates. They are enslaved in a foreign land, far from their home, where their captors mock their religion and demand they entertain them with ‘one of the songs of Zion’.

‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ they reply, utterly bereft. The Babylonians are foreigners, no part of the covenant God made with Abraham. These barbarians have laid waste to Jerusalem, and the Jews, missing their religion, longing for their temples, urge each other not to forget what happened in their homeland, to remember their tormentors’ orders to raze the holy city to the ground -’Raze it, raze it, to its very foundation!’ Now they wish only vengeance upon their captors. This is no New Testament turn-the-other-cheek response to their humiliation and captivity because we are in the fire-and-brimstone Old Testament world of an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. But all this bloodlust proved too much for Boney M, otherwise so faithful to Psalm 137. The group wisely left out the final verses.

0 daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!

Read the whole thing at lowercase liberty.

I am happy to announce that the full content of Benjamin Tucker's Instead Of A Book, By A Man Too Busy To Write One is now available, online, through the Fair Use Repository!

The completion of the online edition adds the following new essays:

1. Part V. Communism.

   1. General Walker and the Anarchists.
   2. Herr Most on Libertas.
   3. Still Avoiding the Issue
   4. Herr Most Distilled and Consumed.
   5. Should Labor be Paid or Not?
   6. Does Competition Mean War?
   7. Competition and Monopoly Confounded.
   8. On Picket Duty.

2. Part VI. Methods.

   1. The Power of Passive Resistance.
   2. The Irish Situation in 1881.
   3. The Method of Anarchy.
   4. Theoretical Methods.
   5. A Seed Planted.
   6. The Home Guard Heard From.
   7. Colonization.
   8. Labor’s New Fetich.
   9. Mr. Pentecost’s Belief in the Ballot.
   10. A Principle of Social Therapeutics.
   11. The Morality of Terrorism.
   12. The Beast of Communism.
   13. Time Will Tell.
   14. The Facts Coming to Light.
   15. Liberty and Violence.
   16. Convicted by a Packed Jury.
   17. Why Expect Justice from the State?
   18. The Lesson of the Hour
   19. Convicted for their Opinions.
   20. To the Breach, Comrades!
   21. On Picket Duty.

3. Part VII. Miscellaneous.

   1. The Lesson of Homestead.
   2. Save Labor from its Friends
   3. Is Frick a Soldier of Liberty?
   4. Shall Strikers be Court-Martialled?
   5. Census-Taking Fatal to Monopoly.
   6. Anarchy Necessarily Atheistic.
   7. A Fable for Malthusians
   8. Auberon Herbert and his Work.
   9. Solutions of the Labor Problem.
   10. Karl Marx as Friend and Foe.
   11. Do the Knights of Labor Love Liberty?
   12. Play-House Philanthropy.
   13. Beware of Batterson!
   14. A Gratifying Discovery.
   15. Cases of Lamentable Longevity.
   16. Spooner Memorial Resolutions.
   17. On Picket Duty.

There are still the usual finishing touches (internal links, details of the front matter, minor points of formatting, etc.) to apply. But this book is basically done, and all 497 pages worth of content are, in any case, available for you to read, cite, and enjoy!