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thislovintime · 7 months

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Photo 1: Peter in 1964, screenshot from his My Generation interview (photo © Andrew Sandoval). Photo 2: Peter Tork and Adam Di Petto (assuming this is at the opening of Zilch in New York City on October 20, 1967; photo courtesy of the Daily News). Photo 3: with Fabio Piangiani Naradamuni and Andriette Redman at Trax, early 1980s (photo via Facebook); photos 5 & 6 from the early 1980s and circa 2013.

Photo 2: “Notice the shot of me bending Peter Tork’s ear. Or is it he bending my ear? (No fair counting my chins!) Actually, I’m hitting him up for a loan — after learning he, Davy, Micky and Mike are now all millionaires! Especially with all the royalties pouring in for their latest lp, ‘Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Limited.’ (Wot, no kitchen sink?)” - Adam Di Petto, Daily News, December 10, 1967

“Money doesn’t mean anything to me. If you can’t be happy poor, you can’t be happy rich.” - Peter, Seventeen, August 1967

Peter Tork: “[The music scene in Greenwich Village during the early 1960s was] Dreamsville. Total wonderfulness. Yeah, I was liberated, I was free, I was a hippie in Greenwich Village. It was great, you couldn’t ask for a better life.” Q: “Were you playing music for a living?” PT: “Yeah.” Q: “Did that pay the bills?” PT: “Yeah, such as they were. I mean, you know, I lived — shared a run-down apartment with a couple of other guys, and went out at night, we played the coffee house circuit in Greenwich Village from seven — quarter of the hour, from seven in the evening until four in the morning, six nights a week. It was a lot of fun.” - GOLD 104.5, 1999

"[N]ow here I am, broke in New York City,’ [Tork] said. But the 38-year-old [sic] singer is far from calling it quits. ‘I’m going to keep plugging,‘ he vowed. ‘I’m not done — this is my craft, my trade.’” - The Tampa Tribune, March 27, 1982 (x)

“I never knew how New York would welcome me back after all those years. It’s a cynical place and, sadly, The Monkees gave a lot of people a chance to exercise their cynicism. New York welcomed me. I started playing again in The Village and I’m doing OK.” - Peter Tork, Countdown, April 1987

#Peter Tork #Tork quotes #60s Tork #Monkees #1967 #1960s #The Monkees #Davy Jones #et al #screenshots #long read #can you queue it

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thatscarletflycatcher · 5 months

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Having both De Gaulle's and Churchill's account (this was one of my grandpa's most prized possessions and I got it after he died) of WWII around is pretty interesting.

On one hand, because De Gaulle is a much more pleasant and engaging storyteller. Mind you, that doesn't mean he's more accurate or anything like that, but he works the concept of a memoir as "the things that happened as I remember them, and the impressions I got from them". Churchill is doing a heavy, heavy chronicle, full of transcripts of telegrams and letters and communications and maps every 2 paragraphs or so, which might be very useful to the amateur historian, but that makes the experience of reading it as a narrative akin to chewing drywall (hence why I have never really read it before; just read a bit here and there about specific events).

The fun part here is the contrast when the perspectives collide.

In early June 1940, De Gaulle is made secretary of the Ministry of Defense in France and sent by the president on a mission to London, where he meets Churchill for the first time:

"Mr. Churchill received me at Downing Street. It was the first time I had a meeting with him. The impression I got of him reaffirmed my conviction that, led by such a fighter, Great Britain would never bend. Mr. Churchill seemed to be prepared for the most difficult enterprises, as long as they also were grandiose ones. The certainty of his judgement, his vast culture, the knowledge he had of most of the matter regarding the countries and men he dealt with, and at last, his passion for the specific problems relating to war unfolded with ease and pleasure. Above all he was made, by virtue of his character, to act, risk, and play his role decidedly and without hesitation. In one word, I found him decided in his position as guide and chief. Such were my first impressions. What followed did nothing but confirm them, revealing to me as well his eloquence and the profit he derived from it. Whatever his audience was -multitude, assembly, council, even a single listener-, whatever the spot -in front of the microphone, at the tribune, at table, or at his desk-, the original, poetic, and moving torrent of his ideas, arguments, and feelings gave him an almost infallible ascendancy within the dramatic environment in which the poor world panted. Able politician that he was, he used that angelic and diabolical gift to stir the passivity of the English character, as much as to impress the spirit of the foreigners. Even the humor with which he seasoned his gestures and phrases, and the way in which he sometimes used politeness and sometimes anger, showed to which point he dominated the terrible game in which he was immersed. The harsh and painful incidents that happened several times between us, caused by the friction of tempers, the opposition of certain interests of our respective countries, and of the abuses that England committed to the detriment of a wounded France, influenced afterwards my attitudes towards the Prime Minister, but in no way did they affect my opinion of his qualities. Winston Churchill always appeared to me, from the beginning to the end of this big drama, as the great champion of a great enterprise, and the great maker of a great History.

Churchill does not record this meeting at all. He cannot have just "forgotten" or dismissed it. You don't forget meeting a 6'5 dude of extremely idiosyncratic posture and manner, specially if you had to deal with him on a regular basis afterwards. The painfully slow and detailed telling of his memoirs don't allow for "it was insignificant enough".

The first mention we get from Churchill is something the like of "I went to Paris to see Reynaud, and there was a very tall fellow walking the gardens".

The fourth time Churchill visited France in 1940 is at a meeting and dinner they both attended. De Gaulle recalls an encouraging comment Churchill directed at Petain, then this:

"Mr. Churchill showed himself imperturbable, full of drive, but keeping a polite reserve in front of the cornered french; he was already overcome -and perhaps not without a certain secret satisfaction- by the terrible and magnificent prospect of an England abandoned to its fate at the island, England that he was to guide to salvation through effort... After three hours of discussion that led nowhere, we sat to dinner. I was by the side of Mr. Churchill. Our conversation strengthened the trust I had in his will. And him, in turn, I am certain, drew the conclusion that De Gaulle, though without material resources, was not a less resolute man."

Meanwhile, Churchill:

"After an interval, we were led to the castle, where we found Reynaud, mariscal Pétain, general Weygand, air general Vuillemin and some others, including the relatively young general De Gaulle, who had just been made sub-secretary of the Ministry of National Defense... Around ten o'clock everyone took their places at table. I sat by the right of Reynaud; by my right was general De Gaulle."

That's it. That's all he had to say.

Don't get me wrong, De Gaulle's text is full of elegant darts at Churchill's manipulative, petty and sly doings and sayings, he's not like, The VictimTM here. It's just very funny that De Gaulle goes "Churchill was a great chief of war, because he was determined and master of himself and also a manipulative backstabber", and then Churchill goes "De Gaulle who? I have no idea who this tall and not very young person whom I needed and used and tried to get rid of and couldn't and who irritated me and annoyed me to no end is".

*All quotes are my translation from the Spanish translations I'm reading from, sorry.

#WWII #History #Winston Churchill #Charles de Gaulle #history

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silvereyedzoroark · 4 months

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Saw this tumblr post and had to draw Charlie my fakemon Trainantula

#Pokemon #fakemon #OC Charlie #Trainantula

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kvetchlandia · 1 year

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Revolutionary Leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Murdered on This Date in 1919.

The murders were of Luxemburg and Liebknecht were committed by the Freikorps, mostly demobilized, footlose and unemployed former soldiers many of whom would soon become nazis, under the orders of the Social Democrat Minister of Defense of the new Weimar Republic, Gustav Noske.

“...Lay down your weapons, you soldiers at the front. Lay down your tools, you workers at home. Do not let yourselves be deceived any longer by your rulers, the lip patriots, and the munitions profiteers. Rise with power and seize the reins of government. Yours is the force. To you belongs the right to rule. Answer the call for freedom and win your own war for liberty…Comrades! Soldiers! Sailors! And you workers! Arise by regiments and arise by factories. Disarm your officers, whose sympathies and ideas are those of the ruling classes. Conquer your foremen, who are on the side of the present order. Announce the fall of your masters and demonstrate your solidarity...” Karl Leibknecht, calling for social revolution in Germany, 1918

“Shamed, dishonored, wading in blood and dripping with filth – there stands bourgeois society. This is it [in reality]. Not all spic and span and moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and the rule of law – but the ravening beast, the witches’ sabbath of anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus it reveals itself in its true, its naked form.” Rosa Luxemburg, on the growing horrors of World War I, in “The Junius Pamphlet,” 1915

“WE HAVE suffered two heavy losses at once which merge into one enormous bereavement. There have been struck down from our ranks two leaders whose names will be for ever entered in the great book of the proletarian revolution: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. They have perished. They have been killed. They are no longer with us!

Karl Liebknecht’s name, though already known, immediately gained world-wide significance from the first months of the ghastly European slaughter. It rang out like the name of revolutionary honour, like a pledge of the victory to come. In those first weeks when German militarism celebrated its first orgies and feted its first demonic triumphs; in those weeks when the German forces stormed through Belgium brushing aside the Belgian forts like cardboard houses; when the German 420mm cannon seemed to threaten to enslave and bend all Europe to Wilhelm; in those days and weeks when official German social-democracy headed by its Scheidemann and its Ebert bent its patriotic knee before German militarism to which everything, at least it seemed, would submit—both the outside world (trampled Belgium and France with its northern part seized by the Germans) and the domestic world (not only the German junkerdom, not only the German bourgeoisie, not only the chauvinist middle-class but last and not least the officially recognized party of the German working class); in those black, terrible and foul days there broke out in Germany a rebellious voice of protest, of anger and imprecation; this was the voice of Karl Liebknecht. And it resounded throughout the whole world!

In France where the mood of the broad masses then found itself under the heel of the German onslaught; where the ruling party of French social-patriots declared to the proletariat the necessity to fight not for life but until death (and how else when the ‘whole people’ of Germany is craving to seize Paris!); even in France Liebknecht’s voice rang out warning and sobering, exploding the barricades of lies, slander and panic. It could be sensed that Liebknecht alone reflected the stifled masses.

In fact however even then he was not alone as there came forward hand in hand with him from the first day of the war the courageous, unswerving and heroic Rosa Luxemburg. The lawlessness of German bourgeois parliamentarism did not give her the possibility of launching her protest from the tribune of parliament as Liebknecht did and thus she was less heard. But her part in the awakening of the best elements of the German working class was in no way less than that of her comrade in struggle and in death, Karl Liebknecht. These two fighters so different in nature and yet so close, complemented each other, unbending marched towards a common goal, met death together and enter history side by side.

Karl Liebknecht represented the genuine and finished embodiment of an intransigent revolutionary. In the last days and months of his life there have been created around his name innumerable legends: senselessly vicious ones in the bourgeois Press, heroic ones on the lips of the working masses.

In his private life Karl Liebknecht was—alas!—already he merely was the epitomy of goodness, simplicity and brotherhood. I first met him more than 15 years ago. He was a charming man, attentive and sympathetic. It could be said that an almost feminine tenderness, in the best sense of this word, was typical of his character. And side by side with this feminine tenderness he was distinguished by the exceptional heart of a revolutionary will able to fight to the last drop of blood in the name of what he considered to be right and true. His spiritual independence appeared already in his youth when he ventured more than once to defend his opinion against the incontestable authority of Bebel. His work amongst the youth and his struggle against the Hohenzollern military machine was marked by great courage. Finally he discovered his full measure when he raised his voice against the serried warmongering bourgeoisie and the treacherous social-democracy in the German Reichstag where the whole atmosphere was saturated with miasmas of chauvinism. He discovered the full measure of his personality when as a soldier he raised the banner of open insurrection against the bourgeoisie and its militarism on Berlin’s Potsdam Square. Liebknecht was arrested. Prison and hard labour did not break his spirit. He waited in his cell and predicted with certainty. Freed by the revolution in November last year, Liebknecht at once stood at the head of the best and most determined elements of the German working class. Spartacus found himself in the ranks of the Spartacists and perished with their banner in his hands.

Rosa Luxemburg’s name is less well-known in other countries than it is to us in Russia. But one can say with all certainty that she was in no way a lesser figure than Karl Liebknecht. Short in height, frail, sick, with a streak of nobility in her face, beautiful eyes and a radiant mind she struck one with the bravery of her thought. She had mastered the Marxist method like the organs of her body. One could say that Marxism ran in her blood stream.

I have said that these two leaders, so different in nature, complemented each other. I would like to emphasize and explain this. If the intransigent revolutionary Liebknecht was characterized by a feminine tenderness in his personal ways then this frail woman was characterized by a masculine strength of thought. Ferdinand Lassalle once spoke of the physical strength of thought, of the commanding power of its tension when it seemingly overcomes material obstacles in its path. That is just the impression you received talking to Rosa, reading her articles or listening to her when she spoke from the tribune against her enemies. And she had many enemies! I remember how, at a congress at Jena I think, her high voice, taut like a wire, cut through the wild protestations of opportunists from Bavaria, Baden and elsewhere. How they hated her! And how she despised them! Small and fragilely built she mounted the platform of the congress as the personification of the proletarian revolution. By the force of her logic and the power of her sarcasm she silenced her most avowed opponents. Rosa knew how to hate the enemies of the proletariat and just because of this she knew how to arouse their hatred for her. She had been identified by them early on.

From the first day, or rather from the first hour of the war, Rosa Luxemburg launched a campaign against chauvinism, against patriotic lechery, against the wavering of Kautsky and Haase and against the centrists’ formlessness; for the revolutionary independence of the proletariat, for internationalism and for the proletarian revolution.

Yes, they complemented one another!

By the force of the strength of her theoretical thought and her ability to generalize Rosa Luxemburg was a whole head above not only her opponents but also her comrades. She was a woman of genius. Her style, tense, precise, brilliant and merciless, will remain for ever a true mirror of her thought.

Liebknecht was not a theoretician. He was a man of direct action. Impulsive and passionate by nature, he possessed an exceptional political intuition, a fine awareness of the masses and of the situation and finally an unrivalled courage of revolutionary initiative.

An analysis of the internal and international situation in which Germany found herself after November 9, 1918, as well as a revolutionary prognosis could and had to be expected first of all from Rosa Luxemburg. A summons to immediate action and, at a given moment, to armed uprising would most probably come from Liebknecht. They, these two fighters, could not have complemented each other better.

Scarcely had Luxemburg and Liebknecht left prison when they took each other hand in hand, this inexhaustible revolutionary man and this intransigent revolutionary woman and set out together at the head of the best elements of the German working class to meet the new battles and trials of the proletarian revolution. And on the first steps along this road a treacherous blow has on one day, struck both of them down.

To be sure reaction could not have chosen more illustrious victims. What a sure blow! And small wonder! Reaction and revolution knew each other well as in this case reaction was personified in the guise of the former leaders of the former party of the working class, Scheidemann and Ebert whose names will be for ever inscribed in the black book of history as the shameful names of the chief organizers of this treacherous murder.

It is true that we have received the official German report which depicts the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg as a street “misunderstanding” occasioned possibly by a watchman’s insufficient vigilance in the face of a frenzied crowd. A judicial investigation has been arranged to this end. But you and I know too well how reaction lays on this sort of spontaneous outrage against revolutionary leaders; we well remember the July days that we lived through here within the walls of Petrograd, we remember too well how the Black Hundred bands, summoned by Kerensky and Tsereteli to the fight against the Bolsheviks, systematically terrorized the workers, massacred their leaders and set upon individual workers in the streets. The name of the worker Voinov, killed in the course of a “misunderstanding” will be remembered by the majority of you. If we had saved Lenin at that time then it was only because he did not fall into the hands of frenzied Black Hundred bands. At that time there were well-meaning people amongst the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries who were disturbed by the fact that Lenin and Zinoviev, who were accused of being German spies, did not appear in court to refute the slander. They were blamed for this especially. But at what court? At that court along the road to which Lenin would be forced to “flee”, as Liebknecht was, and if Lenin was shot or stabbed, the official report by Kerensky and Tsereteli would state that the leader of the Bolsheviks was killed by the guard while attempting to escape. No, after the terrible experience in Berlin we have ten times more reason to be satisfied that Lenin did not present himself to the phony trial and yet more to violence without trial.

But Rosa and Karl did not go into hiding. The enemy’s hand grasped them firmly. And this hand choked them. What a blow! What grief! And what treachery! The best leaders of the German Communist Party are no more—our great comrades are no longer amongst the living. And their murderers stand under the banner of the Social-Democratic party having the brazenness to claim their birthright from no other than Karl Marx! “What a perversion! What a mockery!&#rdquo; Just think, comrades, that “Marxist” German Social-Democracy, mother of the working class from the first days of the war, which supported the unbridled German militarism in the days of the rout of Belgium and the seizure of the northern provinces of France; that party which betrayed the October Revolution to German militarism during the Brest peace; that is the party whose leaders, Scheidemann and Ebert, now organize black bands to murder the heroes of the International, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg!

What a monstrous historical perversion! Glancing back through the ages you can find a certain parallel with the historical destiny of Christianity. The evangelical teaching of the slaves, fishermen, toilers, the oppressed and all those crushed to the ground by slave society, this poor people’s doctrine which had arisen historically was then seized upon by the monopolists of wealth, the kings, aristocrats, archbishops, usurers, patriarchs, bankers and the Pope of Rome, and it became a cover for their crimes. No, there is no doubt however, that between the teaching of primitive Christianity as it emerged from the consciousness of the plebeians and the official catholicism or orthodoxy, there still does not exist that gulf as there is between Marx’s teaching which is the nub of revolutionary thinking and revolutionary will and those contemptible left-overs of bourgeois ideas which the Scheidemanns and Eberts of all countries live by and peddle. Through the intermediary of the leaders of social-democracy the bourgeoisie has made an attempt to plunder the spiritual possessions of the proletariat and to cover up its banditry with the banner of Marxism. But it must be hoped, comrades, that this foul crime will be the last to be charged to the Scheidemanns and the Eberts. The proletariat of Germany has suffered a great deal at the hands of those who have been placed at its head; but this fact will not pass without trace. The blood of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg cries out. This blood will force the pavements of Berlin and the stones of that very Potsdam Square on which Liebknecht first raised the banner of insurrection against war and capital to speak up. And one day sooner or later barricades will be erected out of these stones on the streets of Berlin against the servile grovellers and running dogs of bourgeois society, against the Scheidemanns and the Eberts!

In Berlin the butchers have now crushed the Spartacists’ movement: the German communists. They have killed the two finest inspirers of this movement and today they are maybe celebrating a victory. But there is no real victory here because there has not been yet a straight, open and full fight; there has not yet been an uprising of the German proletariat in the name of the conquest of political power. There has been only a mighty reconnoitering, a deep intelligence mission into the camp of the enemy’s dispositions. The scouting precedes the conflict but it is still not the conflict. This thorough scouting has been necessary for the German proletariat as it was necessary for us in the July days.

The misfortune is that two of the best commanders have fallen in the scouting expedition. This is a cruel loss but it is not a defeat. The battle is still ahead.

The meaning of what is happening in Germany will be better understood if we look back at our own yesterday. You remember the course of events and their internal logic. At the end of February, the popular masses threw out the Tsarist throne. In the first weeks the feeling was as if the main task had been already accomplished. New men who came forward from the opposition parties and who had never held power here took advantage at first of the trust or half-trust of the popular masses. But this trust soon began to break to splinters. Petrograd found itself in the second stage of the resolution at its head as indeed it had to be. In July as in February it was the vanguard of the revolution which had gone out far in front. But this vanguard which had summoned the popular masses to open struggle against the bourgeoisie and the compromisers, paid a heavy price for the deep reconnaissance it carried out.

In the July Days the Petrograd vanguard broke from Kerensky’s government. This was not yet an insurrection as we carried through in October. This was a vanguard clash whose historical meaning the broad masses in the provinces still did not appreciate. In this collision the workers of Petrograd revealed before the popular masses not only of Russia but of all countries that behind Kerensky there was no independent army, and that those forces which stood behind him were the forces of the bourgeoisie, the white guard, the counter-revolution.

Then in July we suffered a defeat. Comrade Lenin had to go into hiding. Some of us landed in prison. Our papers were suppressed. The Petrograd Soviet was clamped down. The party and Soviet printshops were wrecked, everywhere the revelry of the Black Hundreds reigned. In other words there took place the same as what is taking place now in the streets of Berlin. Nevertheless none of the genuine revolutionaries had at that time any shadow of doubt that the July Days were merely the prelude to our triumph.

A similar situation has developed in recent days in Germany too. As Petrograd had with us, Berlin has gone out ahead of the rest of the masses; as with us, all the enemies of the German proletariat howled: “we cannot remain under the dictatorship of Berlin; Spartacist Berlin is isolated; we must call a constituent assembly and move it from red Berlin—depraved by the propaganda of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg—to a healthier provincial city in Germany.” Everything that our enemies did to us, all that malicious agitation and all that vile slander which we heard here, all this translated into German was fabricated and spread round Germany directed against the Berlin proletariat and its leaders, Liebknecht and Luxemburg. To be sure the Berlin proletariat’s intelligence mission developed more broadly and deeply than it did with us in July, and that the victims and the losses are more considerable there is true. But this can be explained by the fact that the Germans were making history which we had made once already; their bourgeoisie and military machine had absorbed our July and October experience. And most important, class relations over there are incomparably more defined than here; the possessing classes incomparably more solid, more clever, more active and that means more merciless too.

Comrades, here there passed four months between the February revolution and the July days; the Petrograd proletariat needed a quarter of a year in order to feel the irresistible necessity to come out on the street and attempt to shake the columns on which Kerensky’s and Tsereteli’s temple of state rested. After the defeat of the July days, four months again passed during which the heavy reserve forces from the provinces drew themselves up behind Petrograd and we were able, with the certainty of victory, to declare a direct offensive against the bastions of private property in October 1917.

In Germany, where the first revolution which toppled the monarchy was played out only at the beginning of November, our July Days are already taking place at the beginning of January. Does this not signify that the German proletariat is living in its revolution according to a shortened calendar? Where we needed four months it needs two. And let us hope that this schedule will be kept up. Perhaps from the German July Days to the German October not four months will pass as with us, but less—possibly two months will turn out sufficient or even less. But however event proceed, one thing alone is beyond doubt: those shots which were sent into Karl Liebknecht’s back have resounded with a mighty echo throughout Germany. And this echo has rung a funeral note in the ears of the Scheidemanns and the Eberts, both in Germany and elsewhere.

So here then we have sung a requiem to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The leaders have perished. We shall never again see them alive. But, comrades, how many of you have at any time seen them alive? A tiny minority. And yet during these last months and years Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg have lived constantly among us. At meetings and at congresses you have elected Karl Liebknecht honorary president. He himself has not been here—he did not manage to get to Russia—and all the same he was present in your midst, he sat at your table like an honoured guest, like your own kith and kin—for his name had become more than the mere title of a particular man, it had become for us the designation of all that is best, courageous and noble in the working class. When any one of us has to imagine a man selflessly devoted to the oppressed, tempered from head to foot, a man who never lowered his banner before the enemy, we at once name Karl Liebknecht. He has entered the consciousness and memory of the peoples as the heroism of action. In our enemies’ frenzied camp when militarism triumphant had trampled down and crushed everything, when everyone whose duty it was to protest fell silent, when it seemed there was nowhere a breathing-space, he, Karl Liebknecht, raised his fighter’s voice. He said “You, ruling tyrants, military butchers, plunderers, you, toadying lackies, compromisers, you trample on Belgium, you terrorize France, you want to crush the whole world, and you think that you cannot be called to justice, but I declare to you: we, the few, are not afraid of you, we are declaring war on you and having aroused the masses we shall carry through this war to the end!” Here is that valour of determination, here is that heroism of action which makes the figure of Liebknecht unforgettable to the world proletariat.

And at his side stands Rosa, a warrior of the world proletariat equal to him in spirit. Their tragic death at their combat positions couples their names with a special, eternally unbreakable link. Henceforth they will be always named together: Karl and Rosa, Liebknecht and Luxemburg!

Do you know what the legends about saints and their eternal lives are based upon? On the need of the people to preserve the memory of those who stood at their head and who guided them in one way or another; on the striving to immortalize the personality of the leaders with the halo of sanctity. We, comrades, have no need of legends, nor do we need to transform our heroes into saints. The reality in which we are living now is sufficient for us, because this reality is in itself legendary. It is awakening miraculous forces in the spirit of the masses and their leaders, it is creating magnificent figures who tower over all humanity.

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are such eternal figures. We are aware of their presence amongst us with a striking, almost physical immediacy. At this tragic hour we are joined in spirit with the best workers of Germany and the whole world who have received this news with sorrow and mourning. Here we experience the sharpness and bitterness of the blow equally with our German brothers. We are internationalists in our sorrow and mourning just as much as we are in all our struggles.

For us Liebknecht was not just a German leader. For us Rosa Luxemburg was not just a Polish socialist who stood at the head of the German workers. No, they are both kindred of the world proletariat and we are all tied to them with an indissoluble spiritual link. Till their last breath they belonged not to a nation but to the International!

For the information of Russian working men and women it must be said that Liebknecht and Luxemburg stood especially close to the Russian revolutionary proletariat and in its most difficult times at that. Liebknecht’s flat was the headquarters of the Russian exiles in Berlin. When we had to raise the voice of protest in the German parliament or the German press against those services which the German rulers were affording Russian reaction we above all turned to Karl Liebknecht and he knocked at all the doors and on all the skulls, including the skulls of Scheidemann and Ebert to force them to protest against the crimes of the German government. And we constantly turned to Liebknecht when any of our comrades needed material support. Liebknecht was tireless as the Red Cross of the Russian revolution.

At the congress of German Social-Democrats at Jena which I have already referred to, where I was present as a visitor, I was invited by the presidium on Liebknecht’s intiative to speak on the resolution moved by the same Liebknecht condemning the violence and the brutality of the Tsarist government in Finland. With the greatest diligence Liebknecht prepared his own speech collecting facts and figures and questioning me in detail on the customs relations between Tsarist Russia and Finland. But before the matter reached the platform (I was to speak after Liebknecht) a telegram report on the assassination of Stolypin in Kiev had been received. This telegram produced a great impression at the congress. The first question which arose amongst the leadership was: would it be appropriate for a Russian revolutionary to address a German congress at the same time as some other Russian revolutionary had carried out the assassination of the Russian Prime Minister? This thought seized even Bebel: the old man who stood three heads above the other Central Committee members, did not like any “needless” complications. He at once sought me out and subjected me to questions: “What does the assassination signify? Which party could be responsible for it? Didn’t I think that in these conditions that by speaking I would attract the attention of the German police?” “Are you afraid that my speech will create certain difficulties?” I asked the old man cautiously. “Yes”, answered Bebel, “I admit I would prefer it if you did not speak.” “Of course,” I answered, “in that case there can be no question of my speaking.” And on that we parted.

A minute later, Liebknecht literally came running up to me. He was agitated beyond measure. “Is it true that they have proposed you do not speak?” he asked me. “Yes,” I replied, “I have just settled this matter with Bebel.” “And you agreed?” “How could I not agree,” I answered justifying myself, “seeing that I am not master here but a visitor.” “This is an outrageous act by our presidium, disgusting, an unheard-of scandal, miserable cowardice!” etc., etc. Liebknecht gave vent to his indignation in his speech where he mercilessly attacked the Tsarist government in defiance of backstage warnings by the presidium who had urged him not to create “needless” complications in the form of offending his Tsarist majesty.

From the years of her youth Rosa Luxemburg stood at the head of those Polish Social-Democrats who now together with the so-called “Lewica” i.e. the revolutionary Section of the Polish Socialist Party have joined to form the Communist Party. Rosa Luxemburg could speak Russian beautifully, knew Russian literature profoundly, followed Russian political life day by day, was joined by close ties to the Russian revolutionaries and painstakingly elucidated the revolutionary steps of the Russian proletariat in the German press. In her second homeland, Germany, Rosa Luxemburg with her characteristic talent, mastered to perfection not only the German language but also a total understanding of German political life and occupied one of the most prominent places in the old Bebelite Social-Democratic party. There she constantly remained on the extreme left wing.

In 1905 Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in the most genuine sense of the word lived through the events of the Russian revolution. In 1905 Rosa Luxemburg left Berlin for Warsaw, not as a Pole but as a revolutionary. Released from the citadel of Warsaw on bail she arrived illegally in Petrograd in 1906, where, under an assumed name, she visited several of her friends in prison. Returning to Berlin she redoubled the struggle against opportunism opposing it with the path and methods of the Russian revolution.

Together with Rosa we have lived through the greatest misfortune which has broken on the working class. I am speaking of the shameful bankruptcy of the Second International in August 1914. Together with her we raised the banner of the Third International. And now, comrades, in the work which we are carrying out day in and day out we remain true to the behests of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. If we build here in the still cold and hungry Petrograd the edifice of the socialist state, we are acting in the spirit of Liebknecht and Luxemburg; if our army advances on the front, it is defending with blood the behests of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. How bitter it is that it could not defend them too!

In Germany there is no Red Army as the power there is still in enemy hands. We now have an army and it is growing and becoming stronger. And in anticipation of when the army of the German proletariat will close its ranks under the banner of Karl and Rosa, each of us will consider it his duty to draw to the attention of our Red Army, who Liebknecht and Luxemburg were, what they died for and why their memory must remain sacred for every Red soldier and for every worker and peasant.

The blow inflicted on us is unbearably heavy. Yet we look ahead not only with hope but also with certainty. Despite the fact that in Germany today there flows a tide of reaction we do not for a minute lose our confidence that there, red October is nigh. The great fighters have not perished in vain. Their death will be avenged. Their shades will receive their due. In addressing their dear shades we can say: “Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, you are no longer in the circle of the living but you are present amongst us; we sense your mighty spirit; we will fight under your banner; our fighting ranks shall be covered by your moral grandeur! And each of us swears if the hour comes, and if the revolution demands, to perish without trembling under the same banner as under which you perished, friends and comrades-in-arms, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht!”

-- Leon Trotsky, “On Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg” 1919

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magpie-moon · 7 months

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I am a dawn

My heart yearns for a bloom of fire, morning sun

to end this devastating numb

I have become a creature

Bereft of comfort, habit consumed by harmony

It haunts, fair in golden-pale sunlight

I plead with a star blurred hope

That the crosses i bear will lessen with age

And the teeth gnawing on these hollow bones

The marrow sucked dry from

Luminous winter nights, over and under, trapping weaves in baskets keen

For warmth beneath this great dark eye, will finally glimpse

The sky and see

Purity, breathe through holes poked in the afterlife

So bright, the fantomes fly home

A windless and cold tribunal

A funeral, staring at a body that might once have been mine

Dressed in the clothes they chose for me, my hair shines

Lips burn red, bright in candlelight

Igniting the waste

I am squandered on sympathy

Empathetic tyranny

Understand my place, inhale with my lunges

And feel my heavy heart beat with every blood filled pump

I am deceased

Undercovers, find me

I am lost, soul searching only left me

In a search of higher places

In debt, my heart wants for wider spaces

To hold me down

The crying never stops, it only slows

Keep me with you always, i might drown in brevity

Aching for serenity

Lover, love me dearly

For if you ever stop i fear i might stop being

A person in this plane, existing for existence sake

I pray

For something

Someone to keep me safe

But the fall of rain matches the patter of her breath

Footsteps heaving, hear her on the steps

Nightmares at the door, i slept so well these last few nights

But nothing, save nothingness, ever lasts. I’m breaking

Swelling at the seems, clashing, i’ve never been seen

Only perceived with preconceived notions

Hold me back, i may run, dressed in nothing but a rash decision

Caressed by darkness, give me strength to sever and create

Hold me still, for thrashing under weight only brings injury

My eternity, cut short, please exhale life unto me

And give me another start, a chance at flight

Hold on to fragile butterfly wings

They break so simply, try to see me. Truly see me

Please

Revive me in my hardship, running only makes them faster, grasping further with sticky

hands

Devour my fear, my hunger, my sickness

Eat my innocence and retch it up, its hurts doesn’t it?

This frail naivete kept hidden, degrading under constant pressure

Understating its devine measure

Humiliation lasts a lifetime, praise but a second

And I can only lie in bed and count my ceiling fan’s rotation as if they were sheep and i

a shepard

An exodus of sleep rending me from tranquility. Its lovely, however, no answer to my

many questions

And the hunger never ends, my sin an overwhelming din above a cliff’s searing edge

I was born and shall die with my eyes unmasked, not to be blinded by the pretty lies

they said, its so telling

How he won’t have anything to do with me

A devil child of her own heart, raised and bred by her blood

And later trapped in his maw, surrounded by wolves so cruel and so drawn

I grew and became

A sword too dull to use, i cannae cut anything but myself

And even then it only bruises

My words pierce like spears, thrown so hard i tumble in after them

Threatened and deceived by their violence, i am rejected by my own mind, i’ve been

gutted

And i cannot harden this heart of mine

It breaks with every word

Starshine, no remedy, heals no wounds, only fills me with clarity

Cures of this kind only work for a time

Desperation looms, a flick of a knife

I will forgive her, bloody knuckles save me, give me momentum

Love me with strife, oh mother, my heart

Laden with tremulous oaths broken like original wedding china

Hold me gently, i bleed constantly

My fingers plucked clean of flesh and bone

Every morning, i awake

To a light so blue it blinds

My skin frigid, nauseated, my stomach empty, crawling

I bend beneath iridescent luminance, forehead against cold porcelain

Stones driven deep with uneven breath, i tremble

Take me home

Oh mother dear

Leave me be, save me from my malady and let me plod this path in peace

Sling your past from my back

My strength is failing. I cannot sustain your vice on top of mine, mother please, i beg

of thee

Sing me to sleep, so i may know rest before death takes me

And what a shame that you ever spoke my name, made me a known entity

Exposed me to a poppy field of pain

Numbing all my hurt, even as you claw your way back into my brain

Your breath reeks of wine and decay, rot outshines its sweetness

Let me in, show me a sign

Of motherly devotion and i will grant amnesty for your crimes, yet you only play games

You set in motion

My decline, proclivities notwithstanding, i attempt to rise

Above your demise

I am a dawn, so clear, so eager to render anew

Weep as woe-begotten tomes tell tall tales

Of remembrance and honeyed betrayals, the bells ring out and time rectifies

Yet i am forever tied to this life of mine, and though we both may carry shame

You and i shall never be the same

#poetry #queer #nonbinary #mommy issues #daddy issues #you know what? parental issues #love #original poem #writers #writers on tumblr #rebirth

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jarael · 2 years

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Aymeric sat amongst the crowd gathered in the Tribunal, ignoring the whispers and soft squealing from the highborns. His arms crossed as he waited for combat to begin. Don't let us down, Sigrun.

"Come to see the spectacle, my friend?"

Haurchefant. Of course. He was not surprised nor disappointed. "I thought she could do with ample moral support."

"She will not fail."

"She and Alphinaud are taking on two of the Ward at once."

"And she's taken on far worse and lived! You worry too much, Lord Commander." Haurchefant's shining enthusiasm could light up all of Ishgard on its gloomiest day. Aymeric couldn't help but muster a smile.

Sigrun looked over at Alphinaud as the gates were lowered. A few months ago, the youth wouldn't have needed reassurance. But recent events had made him nervous. "I can take both of them. Just help me out."

"Floor tanking?" He was exasperated. "Do you confuse yourself for Z'aza?"

"Have you seen that giant sword she's acquired? Maybe she's learning." Sigrun had her chakrams at the ready, her feet in proper position.

The judge gave the order to begin. The Kreigstanz: a war dance. Sigrun flowed within her own rhythm, her lithe body writhing, feet in perfect harmony.

Paulecrain laughed and jabbed a thumb at the Viera. "You see this shit, Grinnaux? Our friend has dancing feet! Dancing--" He was cut off by a swift kick to the head, knocking him off balance.

"These dancing feet will kick you and your friend's lying asses," Sigrun snapped. She delivered another lunging kick, but Paulecrain was smart enough this time to dodge.

Grinnaux rolled his lavender eyes. "Floor tank," he mocked, readying his great axe. His eyes lit up with the excitement of battle as he went after Alphinaud.

Sigrun kept an eye on the youth while dodging Paulecrain’s lance. No way would she let her friend fall to such a tool.

“What’s the matter?” mocked Paulecrain. “Afraid you’ll get hurt--and face justice?”

“You must have a different definition of justice than I,” she snapped back, throwing a chakram at his wrists, forcing him to bend back. “You know you and your friend are liars.”

He was not amused. With a shout, he charged her--but the height difference was enough for Sigrun to still safely dodge. She tripped him up, making him stumble, before knocking him on the back of the head, causing him to drop his lance. He grimaced at her before punching the ground and swearing.

No time to waste. “I’m coming, Alphinaud!” Sigrun shouted as she rushed to help the young man.

Grinnaux swung his axe at Alphinaud, who dodged artfully and retaliated with perfectly time magick. "Cute little tricks, boy," he sneered, "but can you keep up?"

"He is more than capable," Sigrun cut in, throwing one of her weapons towards the Bull's hands, "but so am I--and your friend took the loss."

Upon seeing his brother shamed, Grinnaux renewed his efforts towards Sigrun, carefully following her moves and closing in on her. Alphinaud began to panic; she moved much faster than the Knight, but he was larger, and wielded a much deadlier weapon than she.

A swing of the axe took Sigrun off her feet, landing on her face. Alphinaud's heart beat in his throat. Get up, please, my friend.

Haurchefant nearly bolted out of his seat, restrained only by Aymeric's firm grip. "Sigrun! Up, damn you!" Gone was his usual happy-go-lucky demeanor, his blue eyes now steel, and worried--and would be wrathful should Grinnaux take something so precious from him.

"Lord Haurchefant, please!" Aymeric had to stay calm and ignore his own concern for the Viera. "You cannot--"

"If she doesn't--I shall make him wish he was never born."

Grinnaux hovered over Sigrun, smirking as the crowd awaited the finale. "Not so smooth, are we?" He raised his axe, and--

Like a flash, Sigrun spun around and locked onto his arms like a lemur hunting for fruit, grabbing his wrists so tightly that he dropped his axe. Before he could react, she applied pressure to several key points on his body, making him quiver before slumping over.

"The Fury has made her decision!" The judge waved a hand. "The charges will be dropped against Leveilleur and Taru."

Grinnaux's chest was heaving, his body limp. "What did you do to me, woman?"

"A little trick a friend taught me." Sigrun turned away, not gracing him with her attention any more. She extended a hand to Alphinaud. "Good work, youngster. Let's get Tataru and get out of here."

Outside the courtroom was Haurchefant, waiting, his eyes back to their usual twinkle. His face lit up with his signature grin as Sigrun, Alphinaud and Tataru approached. "Excellent show, my friend! But for the love of the Fury, don't ever scare me like that again."

Sigrun pouted. "I thought you liked it when I played games."

"I don't think I need to hear this," begged Alphinaud.

"I do!" Tataru disagreed.

"Actually, Alphinaud has a point. I'll catch up with you two later." After the duo left, and making sure they were alone, Sigrun drew Haurchefant into a tight embrace and a deep, passionate kiss. "You said you had a reward for me?"

"Well, one will have to wait until later tonight," he explained with a wink. "But the other--you shall have a black chocobo, purely Ishgardian born and bred. After all, the best hero deserves the best reward."

"You're too sweet."

#ffxiv #fanfic #Sigrun Bosco #heavensward spoilers #haurchefant greystone #wolchefant #aymeric de borel #grinnaux de dzemael #Paulecrain de Fanouilley #long post #tataru taru

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john-langley-bristol-blogger · 2 months

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Genderbenders, take note!

Yes, the 'Almighty Gob' has returned for another sideways swipe at those who should have their brains wired up to at least twenty car batteries.

Wouldn't the 'Bullshit Times' be a great title for a contemporary newspaper?

It seems that every day there's an issue where there needn't be one, and it's

always bullshit caused by someone having hurt feelings. Such as the wimpish

world this has become nowadays. However, on the plus side, it does give me

something to write about.

So, today’s offerings toward people who deserve to have their heads connected to

at least twenty car batteries as a wake-up call are as follows. The limp wristed,

adult nappy-wearing, haven't a clue as to whether they're Arthur or Martha,

Gen x,y, and z, fuckwit, oh so politically correct, anal wipe, gender

ideologoes employed by our uncivil service, who've put a lawyer employed

by an arms-length department of DEFRA in the frame for allegedly making

gender-critical comments at work. Such as stating her belief that only

women have periods.

If I'm incorrect in my belief, would any man out there who is reading this

and suffers from excessive bleeding through their penis every month as

the uterus sheds blood, mucus and cells please make yourself known.

Forget Dianne Abbot's threat of shooting, which was, of course, a turn of

phrase we all use from time to time in jest, when those who really do need to

face a firing squad of gunge-filled supersoakers are the pillocks who

disagree that biological sex isn't binary and immutable.

To add insult to injury, the lawyer at the centre of this bullshit,

Duemmer Wrigley is due to appear at an employment tribunal where she,

yes she, is being accused of harassment for daring to claim that being

gender-critical was a 'protected belief', and the claim against both

her and DEFRA further suggest that the department nurtures an

"intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and/or offensive

environment". In all honesty, have you ever heard of such bullshit in

your life?

Of course, it goes without saying that behind this there'll be some

ambulance-chasing type lawyer out to further their career by making

a name for themself if they win the case, and grovelling to the complainant

instead of telling him/her/it/animal/vegetable/mineral to get a grip and

go do one.

Next, I turn my attention to the 'all about me' driven, egocentric,

self-entitled, gender-bending, parenting screw-ups, and loony left,

liberal-leaning, mindless moron academics and campaigners who

promote gender identity ideology in classrooms. Hopefully, that

is a politically correct, and fully inclusive description of all

involved in this lunacy. If not, then I apologise and will try to

do better in future.

Anyway, to my point. In the words of Pink Floyd - "Teacher, leave

them kids alone". If you turn back a few blogs you will note that

I've stated pretty much all of the things that are wrong

nowadays started at the beginning of this millennium, when being

candid with you, our previously stoic and robust society began to

disintegrate into the monumental clusterfuck it is now.

I've dedicated a few pages to this grating subject in my book

'The Sexual Philanthropist'- (https://amzn.to/3TzI5AQ), and totally

agree with the views of JK Rowling, and many other sane, rational

people on the subject, which have again been further explored in

my previous blog posts.

Trans activist lunatics are somehow being allowed to run riot

where this subject is concerned, and dare a teacher go against

such indoctrination, or call a girl a boy and the proverbial will

instantly hit the fan, with the teacher drummed out of the job -

and possibly an entire career.

If, by now, you haven't yet noticed the link between the two

subjects of this blog you need to read again to understand

exactly how the millennials and their progeny should not, in any way,

be allowed anywhere near positions of responsibility and decisions

where feelings overrule fact, and a good place to start would be

for one, the biological difference between men and women.

Thank you for reading my Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it with others who will also enjoy my satiric overview of life.

#john langley #john langley blog #bristol #john langley bristol writer #john langley author #john langley tumblr #google #millennials #gen x #gender critical #gen z #trans #transgender #transgender trend #DEFRA #biological sex #only women have periods #jk rowling

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aihcp · 6 months

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Tips offered to manage the strain of stress - GREAT BEND TRIBUNE

Many reactions occur within the body during an attempt to deal with stressors. A few short-term effects include increased adrenaline, cortisol production (the stress hormone), or muscle tightness. Chronic stress affects our physical, emotional, and social well-being, and symptoms such as irritability, fatigue, changes to eating habits or burnout can occur.

American Institute Health Care Professionals's insight:

Tips offered to manage the strain of stress. For more about Stress Management and how to combat stress please visit our Online Stress Management courses. https://aihcp.net/stress-management-ce-courses-program/

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burnsoregonphotoblog · 2 years

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Court House Burns Oregon - About 1909

This is a B. B. Bakowski of La Grande Oregon photo postcard.

A great history of this particular photographer is touched on at PDX History.

“Bruno Bakowski was a noted post card photographer from Central Oregon, who was well known for his post cards of scenic Central and Eastern Oregon, stage and freighter wagons and signature city views. His post cards are sequentially numbered and he produced over 3500 views. Bakowski first operated a studio in LaGrande, Oregon in 1908. Over the next three years, he also operated Oregon Art Co., a studio at Bend. His cards were signed either “B.B. Bakowski” or “Oregon Art Co.”On a photo shooting trip to Crater Lake, Bakowski disappeared in 1911 while photographing Crater Lake during a winter blizzard. Search parties found his camp and camera but his body was never recovered. According to the local press, the Medford Mail Tribune, reported search parties were looking for him on Feb. 22, 1911 then on March 1, 1911, the Mail Tribune reported that Bakowski was presumed dead.” from pdxhistory.com

There are at least two other posts for this structure. Links below.

#burns oregon #harney county #harneycounty #court house #oregonoutback #eastern oregon #oregon #oregon outback #the great pnw #the old west #the pacific northwest #vintage #postcard

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unitedstatesmailbox · 2 years

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