Soldats chinois nationalistes avec une mitrailleuse lourde MG 08 Maxim Type 24 - Guerre sino-japonaise

“New pictures, just received from the Orient, showing some of the Chinese forces which are lined up against the powerful Japanese war machine in Jehol. The above photo shows Chinese soldiers digging trenches not far Shanhaikwan.”

- from the Kingston Whig-Standard. March 7, 1933. Page 7.

I like to think that the revolutionary army has a board at their base where they have like a map of liberated or affiliated nations, and on that board is an employee of the month and it’s been Monkey D Luffy since after Impel down/Marineford.

Imagine you’re a new person in the RA, you’d think he’s the nepo personality hire, literally the son/ brother of the heads of the organisation. but man when you look at his accomplishments….you can’t help but think he’s Speed running takedowns Of corrupt governments/ breaking into high security government places, he’s been doing it since shells town.

Months of planning your organisation takes to start a coup against a corrupt king/ figurehead, and this rubber kid in a straw hat and flip flops dose it in an afternoon.

The Paris National Guard on its way to the Army, September 1792

by Léon Cogniet

Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)

lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.

the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.

to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:

it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as

the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.

bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:

On this day, 23 July 1967, one of the biggest rebellions in US history occurred in Detroit, following a police raid on a bar in a poor, majority Black area in the early hours of the morning. Black and white residents fought police in the streets and looted goods while snipers took potshots at officers from windows. Police, National Guard and US troops retaliated with outright brutality and intense violence. By the time it was over, more than 40 people were dead, 7,000 arrested and over 2,000 buildings destroyed. General Baker, a Black auto worker at the Dodge Main assembly plant in Hamtramck said that he and his colleagues "learnt from the Detroit Rebellion… When the Detroit Rebellion took place, and the National Guard and 101st Airborne was sent in, and they imposed curfew, if you got sick, you couldn’t go to the doctor. If you got hungry, you couldn’t get no food. But if you had a badge from Chrysler, Ford or General Motors, you could get to the police line, the National Guard line, the army line, all of them to take your butt to work. The conclusion we draw from that was that the only place in this society that Black people had any value was at a point of production. That’s why after the rebellion, we turned all our efforts into organising inside the plants." The following year, Baker and others formed the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), part of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Learn more about the group in episodes 61-62 of our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e61-the-league-of-revolutionary-black-workers-in-detroit/ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=666624525510766&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

Revolts and revolutions in Italy under the Restoration

“Atlante storico”, Garzanti, 1966

by cartesdhistoire

The Congress of Vienna divided Italy into ten largely reactionary states, against which the secret society of Charbonnage, originating in the Kingdom of Naples in 1807, opposed itself. The "Carbonari," mainly from the middle classes, whose growth had been favored by French domination, claimed inspiration from the constitution of Cádiz promulgated by the Spanish parliament with Napoleon's agreement in 1812.

Revolutionary movements erupted first in Naples in the summer of 1820, followed by Palermo, which became the scene of a genuine civil war. The insurrection spread to Piedmont from March 1821; the insurgents were defeated in Novara on April 8, with Austrian assistance, leading to ruthless repression until October. Order on the peninsula was only fully restored in early 1822 by the Austrian army. Severe anti-liberal repression was felt in Modena, the Papal State, and Milan. At least 3,000 patriots went into exile between 1821 and 1823.

Echoing the Parisian revolution of 1830, which had a profound impact in Italy, an uprising erupted in early 1831 in Modena, Parma, and Bologna. On March 4, the Austrian army entered the Duchy of Modena, and on the 29th, the last remnants of the insurgent army capitulated. Fierce repression followed.

Patriots were divided into two models: revolutionary and democratic or liberal and moderate. The latter, itself subdivided into two currents, one advocating unification under the pope's auspices and the other under the leadership of the House of Savoy. The revolutionary model, predominant until 1848, found its embodiment in Giuseppe Mazzini, who envisioned a popular insurrection to overcome resistance from princes and local particularisms, leading to a republic. Mazzini's activism played a significant role in shaping the Italian people's national consciousness, but the utopian nature of the insurrectional path ultimately led to a deadlock.

Imagine the beast pirates learning you are a criminal mastermind

Kaido: *going over a cargo manifest* we will sell these in Port Chugal, prepare them for shipment.

King: Port Chugal won't buy pirate goods anymore, the world government found out they've been trading with us, so they replaced the king there.

Kaido: That's the third distribution market I've had to change in the last month. First the Bourgeois Kingdom, then Ballywood, and now Port Chugal. How are they finding my warehouses?

Queen: we don't know at the moment, but we're working on it

You: *King's assistant* I would like to point out something that all three have in common.

King: Silence.

Kaido: let em talk, I want to hear what they have to say.

You: they were all common stops on Captain Rondow's transport route, who was captured almost three months ago by the world government.

Kaido: You think the poor bastard broke under torture?

You: It appears so, and from the other reports we're getting I'm guessing they have figured out how you conduct your exportation operation. *Hands King the reports*

King: *Skims them* we spent years building this system.

You: which means building another will be faster this time. I'm guessing how they're locating our goods is by the fact that while it's labeled under a company that doesn't have any paperwork officially filed in countries we claim it's from.

Kaido: what are we supposed to do, get a business permit?

You: yes, but actually no. Now any new businesses from any nations in your territory will come under scrutiny by the world government. So I think we should find any failing, but long-established companies, and bail them out in exchange for slipping our illicit cargo into their product distribution.

King: that... might actually work, but there's no way we can guarantee their loyalty.

You: that's why you give them a small percentage of the profits and gather blackmail material. Most rich people are sick fucks will have skeletons in their closet, you just have to look for it.

Kaido: I'll entrust the task to you, and in the meantime we'll have Yamato fill in for you with King.

King: what! No! Your son is... not great at paperwork.

Kaido: Sorry bud, but I'd like to see what they can do on their own, so I'm setting them loose.

Returns from setting up the new network seven months later

Kaido: I just got the finance report for the last quarter

You: *literally just got off the boat* Sir?

King: Your network is more efficient than what we had set up.

Kaido: you're getting promoted, so you can manage it from here.

You: But I was really looking forward to working with King again.

Kaido: then you'll work under him not me.

You: I'm keeping my desk in your office.

King: For someone who ruthlessly castrated a man to get him to do what they wanted, you are very clingy and sentimental.

You: I was well within my rights to revoke that man's dick privilege, you had no idea how man people he's assaulted. I did that town a fucking favor by pickling that man's junk

Kaido: you pickled it!

You: Yes I did, how else, so you think I got an entire town to look the other way about our ships coming into the harbor?

Kaido: I never would have thought of that... You know when I met you I never would have guessed you'd be an asset to my operations. You seemed too soft and naive, too kind.

You: *shrugs* Well thank you for thinking I'm kind, but I just so happen to hate you less than the world government, and you have more money than the revolutionary army. And Lin Lin and her family freaks me out.

King: don't forget Akagami and Whitebeard won't hire you since you've worked with us.

You: *clicks your tongue* and I regret it every day.

Coming Soon

Today, the PA lacks any political legitimacy to mask its role as a second South Lebanon Army for Israel. The continued theft of land and the denial of rights of the refugees of the Gaza Strip, as well as the rest of the Palestinians, bestowed a duty upon Hamas and the resistance factions to launch the attack to break the status-quo. Oslo failed to free the Palestinian prisoners as promised by PLO officials, and the right of return was similarly sidelined; the Great March of Return in 2018 was crushed by the kneecapping of protestors in their hundreds. The international community cheered on, hoping to trap both Gaza and the West Bank with its own standards of passive resistance, statebuilding, and individualist economic prosperity that hides itself behind the veil of a collective effort to produce the New Palestinian to the world. The significance of the October 7th assault thus becomes clearer: it was an attack not only against Israeli settler colonialism, but also against the fundamental discourse that underlies the PA. It broke the taboo on centering Palestinian rights through the lens of decolonial and revolutionary armed struggle. More importantly, it scathed the colonial hubris of a nuclear-armed beast that boasts of its weaponry and supposed military superiority to the world when ‘mowing the lawn’ in Gaza. No wonder, then, why the international community is cheering on the destruction of Gaza and the elimination of resistance. Out of fear that Hamas would break the perpetual stalemate that the PLO signed on to in 1993, the US wants to quench the Zionist bloodthirst that ensued after October 7th through JDAMS, Delta Force squadrons, and a media clergy that parrots every Israeli army claim that demonises not only the Resistance, but the entire population of Gaza. The entire Israeli political spectrum is united around portraying Palestinians as Nazis, ISIS members, ‘children of darkness’, as well as human animals in order to manufacture worldwide consent for the continuous bombardment of the Gaza Strip. It is already clear that October 7th will become a landmark moment in the history of Palestinian resistance against Zionism, its benefactors, and its local agents. The PA, US, and Europe are encouraging the massacre and total siege of the Gaza Strip, not only because of their inherent interest in the continued existence of Israel on Arab land, but also because of their frenzied desire to try and restore the status quo, an imagined reality that existed before October 7th. Attempts to soften Hamas’ position on liberation via the Quartet and Qatar never bore fruit, as evidenced by what has transpired since. The failure of the peace dividends to thwart the Palestinian people, the collapse of the political discourse that masks securitisation behind a national goal, and the continued will of the resistance groups in Gaza to fight despite an international siege and soft power tactics to entice them to stay silent – all of this will pave the way for a more revolutionary discourse with regards to liberation. The era of pseudo-statebuilding is finally behind us, and an age of liberation is coming.

Okay. So, last night I was scrolling through my news feed and I came across an article with one of the most dogshit takes I've ever had the misery of reading with my own two eyes.

The article in question? From 'The National Interest', "The M60 Patton could never be built today."

So, come with me as we absolutely rip the fuck out of this dogshit article. (Now is your chance to read it.)

So, first, let me say, that I don't dislike the m60. It's a venerable tank, extremely capable for its time, and the fact that it still sees some use more than 60 years after it's creation says a great deal as to its capabilities.

However, I take great issue with some of this article's claims.

First, the idea that the M60 was some revolutionary miracle tank, developed out of the blue, and rushed to the field before it was ready. To be frank, that's a bold-faced lie. The M60 is the result of a long lineage of medium tanks and MBTs, stretching back to the final days of ww2. A fairly common piece of cold-war tank trivia is that the M60 was never formally called the "Patton", it just looked so much like the m48 "Patton", that the tankers never saw fit to call it anything different. (Below is a comparison of the vehicles: from the front, the tanks can be distinguished by the m48s concave frontal armor, while the m60 has a flat wedge.)

M60:

M48:

The m48, itself, was a development of the m46, which was itself an upgrade of the m26 Pershing, the American medium tank used in the last days of the European theater. So, the idea that the m60 was flawed because of its "revolutionary design" not being given time to be tested is, quite frankly, horseshit.

Next up on the chopping block is the claims that the M60 is still in use by nations today. The article states that, throughout the Middle East, you can find nations that use the m60 and its modernization still today, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia. However, you'll notice that none of these nations are exactly military powerhouses, with Egypt not having won a war that wasn't against starving partisan rebels since the British packed up their shit and went home, and Saudi Arabia quickly transferring to the M1, and offloading as many of their Pattons on other nations as quickly as they can manage. And let's be honest, when's the last time you even thought about the Iranian military?

Next, I'm going to directly quote this line, because it's peak comedy. "in 1991, the United States Marine Corps, one of the most innovative branches in the US military, deployed the M60 in battle against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Army." Ah, yes, the Marine Corps, famous for it's innovation and openness to change...

The Marines wouldn't know innovation if it grabbed the crayon out of their mouths. They hate change more than H.P. Lovecraft hated penguins and Irish people. So to come out and say that something is amazing because the Marines are still using it instead of a newer thing? It's peak comedy.

Then, the author goes into his highly-political diatribe about how, because the m60 was so "rushed" and "untested", it's head-and-shoulders above any US defense project since, because it still sees some use by tin-pot dictators, outdated militias, and the Marines in Iraq. However, what he fails to mention is that the m60 was the ultimate result of the 2nd generation of MBT technology, building on a lineage of tanks going back to 1945. The idea that the m60 is special in any way other than being the culmination of a generation or armored vehicle technology is ludicrous, and I sincerely hope that not too many are suckered in by this ex-congressional staffer's bullshit.

I think that the concept of immediacy is one that's pivotal to modern political analysis, but which is sorely missing in many discussions.

The most obvious example is in our existential threat - climate change. To a simple, omniscient material analysis, capitalism would be appearing to act incoherently here. The capitalist system is the expression of the political will of the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie. This class acts towards its own interests, to maintaining its own power and improving its standards of life. To this end it does many things that impoverish and oppress *other* classes - it creates masses of unemployed and unhoused people and forces violence on them, to maintain a reserve army of labour; it carries out violent redistribution of territory between its various states, wars fought with the blood of the lower classes, to restore the rate of profit; it impoverishes entire nations, repressing them politically and economically, to create favourable markets to export its capital to and import labour-power from - but climate change threatens to destroy the capitalist class as a whole, alongside everyone else. Plainly, it is not in their material interest to poison the air they breathe and the food they eat.

Why stop there, however? There are a number of other things that threaten the common ruin of the contending classes - but even so, if we focus only on the ruin of the *ruling* class, there's only one threat we need bother focusing on. Travel back to the establishment of the bourgeois republic, to the revolutionaries fighting feudal monarchy - is this in their interests? By the standard we've just established: no! Inexorably, plainly, as the capitalist class just overthrew the aristocracy, so too will the bourgeoisie themselves be overthrown by the working class. In the long term, they're simply dooming their own class to its inevitable destruction. Yet, they carry out their revolution anyway, for reasons that are quite obvious - it's not their problem right now. The eventual overthrow of their class is effectively immaterial to them, compared to the immediate benefits of revolution. In the same way, on a halfway-smaller timescale, the current capitalist class has more immediate problems to face than climate change. The long-term doesn't matter anyway if you don't survive the short-term.

This is, of course, not only applicable to climate change. Having established this premise, an important focus is the imperial core, and third-worldism. Does the working class of the imperial core benefit from anti-imperialism? Well, yes, and no! In the long-term, it's plainly evident that the proletariat of the imperialist nations would be better off under socialism. However, it's also clear that they presently *do* receive benefit, compared to the proletariat of other nations, due to imperialism. The *immediate* effect of anti-imperialist political organisation and action in the imperial core would be a worsening of their conditions, while the long-term, ultimate effect would remain a massive improvement in their conditions. In the final analysis, socialist revolution is in the interest of *all* workers - however, for some workers, it's very much not in their *immediate* interests. Understanding this, without a need for claims of ideological corruption or some innate counter-revolutionary tendency, shows clearly *why* certain sections of the working class oppose global socialism *and the circumstances that would bring about their support*.

Soldat chinois avec un dadao – Guerre sino-japonaise – Chine – 1930's

"CHANGSHA - A Jap Rout," Brantford Expositor. May 27, 1942. Page 10. ---- Graveyard Hill was the name of the decisie battle for Changsha in which Chinese scored their great victory. Here Chinese troops hold hill overlooking and dominating the vital Chinese City. Return of the native picture shows Changha residents in a crude sailboat crossing the Hsiang River. They are going back to what was left of their homes. They are still in those homes, too. Rubble of what was once their house greeted these two Chinese, but they were fashioning a new dwelling place with the bricks and other bits left them after the smoke of battle had cleared. Congratulations to victorious Gen. Hsueh Yueh from Harris Forman photographer for NEA Service and The Expositor, who scored a world scop by obtaining these exclusive pictures

Hi, I want to ask if you have any topics about the Philippine-American War? I have gotten myself in Philippine History and I want to know deeper. Thanks:)

I was thinking of many ways on how to answer this because this is such a large and complicated topic but I could just try to summarize some stuff here and tell you what I know and what I could find.

The Filipino-American war mainly started as Filipinos felt betrayed by their former American allies after the country was sold to them by Spain after the Spanish-American war during the Treaty of Paris of 1898 for $20 million alongside other Spanish colonies like Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba (American Historical Association, n.d.). This feeling of betrayal had come from the fact that the leader and dictator president of the Filipino revolutionaries, Emilio Aguinaldo of the Kataastaasang Kagalang-galang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (en. The Supreme and Honorable Association of the Children of the Nation) or the Katipunan for short, actually sought assistance from the Americans in Hong Kong during the Filipino Revolutionary War against Spain which was happening at the same time (Kedmey, 2013). This is why tensions were so high with the Americans when they first formally colonized the Philippines.

Interestingly, the purchase also included some territories that weren't actually part of Spanish rule such as the Sultanate of Sulu as well as some indigenous territories which led to a strained relationship with the Americans moving forward such as the independent Moros of Muslim Mindanao later being forced to assimilate to the rest of the colony of the Philippines despite previous agreements that state that they will leave them alone, mirroring the way the United States government treated Native Americans (Gowing, 1968).

Fighting between the American army and the Filipino army first broke out when on February 4, 1899 after Private William W. Grayson fired at 4 Filipino soldiers who cocked their rifles in response to them ordering the men to halt which later broke out into the Battle of Manile of 1899 (Chaput, 2012). As the Filipinos and Americans declared war on each other, the Katipuneros resorted to the mountains to start guerilla warfare against the American army (Philippine-American War, n.d.) which then lasted until 1901 when Aguinaldo was captured on March 23, 1901, just a day after Aguinaldo's birthday actually with the capture being attributed to two of his men, Lazaro Segovia and Hilario Tal Placido who betrayed him to the Americans with his other men still being too relaxed from the festivities the day before (Ocampo, 2010).

The fighting continued despite his capture and surrender until the last of the generals, General Macario Sakay, surrendered in July 14, 1906 who was then later executed along side his men on September 13, 1907 despite the initial promise of amnesty by the American government (Pangilinan & Pimintel, 2008).

The war ended the lives of 4,300 American soldiers with only 1,500 having been killed in action with the rest succumbing to diseases, while Filipino forces suffered 20,000 casualties alongside the death of 200,000 Filipino civilians due to hunger, disease, and combat (Philippine-American War, n.d.).

The violence of the situation and especially committed by the American soldiers prompted a lot of protests in the United States to stop the war immediately, as letters of the situation had been sent back to their homes which describes in excruciating detail the war crimes that these soldiers were ordered to commit such as blockading and burning down villages, extreme torture of captured and suspected enemies, and much more. The most well-known of these torture methods that I remember being taught to us in history classes as early as 4th grade was the "Water Cure" where American soldiers would force water down the victim's throat in and force them to vomit it back out. This article has a detailed account of the exact nature of this torture method as it discusses the torture of Mayor Joveniano Ealdama of Igbaras, who, although no American troop was actually hurt in his town, was tortured with his town being burnt down by the Americans the very next day (Vestal, 2017).

I do have to be honest, I was utterly shocked at how little Americans really knew about the Philippine American colonial era and by extension the Philippine-American war especially with the sheer amount of brutality the Americans had done to Filipino locals as well as the large impact the American government and American culture has had in my country and I am glad that more and more people are starting to learn more about this but it's still rather disappointing.

Videos on the Philippine-American War

If you want to learn more about the Philippine-American War, I have a couple of recommendations for videos that you can watch.

This video by Crash Course explains the origins of American Imperial idealization as well as the wars that led up to the colonization of the many territories that America acquired during this time era:

Here's a good summary by history teacher Mr. Beat of the major aspects of the war as well as the American public's perception of it that you can watch:

Here's a video made with a Filipino-perspective by Jonas Tayaban on the topic:

Here's a summary in Tagalog. It doesn't have English subtitles though but it does detail more things about the build-up and the subsequent wars between Spain and America and later the Philippines and Spain and then America too:

Movies about the Philippine-American War

I would also be remiss to not suggest some historical movies that tackle the events of this time period and especially TBA Studios' Artikulo Uno films Heneral Luna (2015) which focuses on the most popular and effective general of the revolution Gen. Antonio Luna, and Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral (2018) which focuses on Gregorio "Goyo" del Pilar, one the youngest generals of Filipino history who died a very tragic death at a young age:

You can watch the full movie here complete with English Subtitles

Another well-known movie about this time period is Viva Films' El Presidente (2012), although I had heard people say it's very much biased to the controversial dictator president Aguinaldo's side with many people citing that as the reason why they don't like the film.

Here's a reupload of the full-movie. It doesn't have subtitles though.

I don't know of any American-made movies that focuses on this topic and I know there's several other films that focus more on the politics of the Katipunan and the Filipino Revolutionary War against Spain, but not necessarily the Philippine-American War so if anyone has other suggestions, please let me know.

I would also like to suggest documentaries but most of the ones I've seen are on World War II and the others are other YouTube videos by history channels that I'm not too familiar with made by mostly white American YouTubers. Not that that would disqualify their videos (I did reference both John Green and Mr. Beat here) but I don't know these history channels and their hosts enough to recommend them in good faith as of right now.

Books and Further Reading on the Philippine-American War

For books on the subject, I often reference the many writings of Ambeth Ocampo such as his Looking Back series, specifically:

Looking Back 2: Dirty Dancing (Shopee, Lazada, Amazon)

Looking Back 11: Independence x6 (Shopee, Lazada)

Looking Back 13: Guns of the Katipunan (Shopee, Lazada)

I'm also currently interested in buying some other books about the topic like The Hills of Sampaloc: The Opening Actions of the Philippine-American War, February 4-5, 1899 (Shopee, Amazon) but I don't really have any extra money to spare for it right now.

I remember that my father had some other books about this too but the names had escaped me and it's far too much work to try to sort out through his entire book pile in our house.

I hope this answer's comprehensive enough since the subject is, as I said before, quite complex and rather large so I can't really get into all the specifics right now.

References:

American Historical Association. (n.d.). How Did America Enter the Picture?. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-24-what-lies-ahead-for-the-philippines-(1945)/how-did-america-enter-the-picture

Chaput, D. (2012). Private William W Grayson's War in the Philippines, 1899. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from https://ne-test-site8.cdc.nicusa.com/sites/ne-test-site8.cdc.nicusa.com/files/doc/publications/NH1980GraysonWar1899.pdf

Gowing, P. (1968). Muslim-American Relations in the Philippines, 1899-1929. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from https://asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ-06-03-1968/gowing-muslim-american%20relations%20in%20the%20philippines%201899-1920.pdf

Kedmey, D. (2013, June 13). Exiled in Hong Kong: Famous Company for Edward Snowden.Time. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from https://world.time.com/2013/06/15/exiled-in-hong-kong-famous-company-for-edward-snowden/slide/general-emilio-aguinaldo/

Ocampo, A. (2010). Looking Back 2: Dirty Dancing. Anvil Publishing

Pangilinan, F., & Pimintel, A. (2008, September 9). A Resolution Expressing the Sense of the Senate Honoring the Sacrifice of Macario Sakay and all other Filipinos who Gave Up their Lives in the Philippine-American War for our Freedom, Senate Resolution No. 623, 14th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from http://legacy.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/83927584!.pdf

Philippine-American War. In Britannica. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Philippine-American-War

Vestal, A. (2017). The First Wartime Water Torture by Americans. Retrieved on 3 February 2024, from https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol69/iss1/2/

Happy November 17th with music!!!

Greece has three national holidays; March 25th, the Independence Day, October 28th, the ΟΧΙ (No) Day aaaaand November 17th, the Polytechneio Day.

In fact, November 17th is considered a semi-national day, as it doesn't commemorate an ethnic uprising against some foreign oppressor or invader but the political intranational uprising against the Colonel Dictatorship of 1967-1974. It is the anniversary of the revolt that took place in the National "Metsovion" Technical University of Athens (Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο - Ethnikó Metsóvio Polytechnío) by its students in November 1973. (Greek Polytechneia are high education engineering universities, so they are not the equivalent to technical schools.) The uprising was the most impactful anti-junta movement in Greece - students commandeered the University, operated a radio station and started protesting against the junta and spreading effectively the message to the Greek people, who started gathering around the school. Their effective protests harmed the dictators, who sent the army to surround the university and threaten the students. While the students and the junta were still in negotiations, the army broke the academic asylum, a tank demolished the gates and soldiers invaded the school. During the episodes that ensued, there were 40 deaths and more than 2,000 injured reported. The Polytechnic movement did not bring down the junta, however it was a crucial contributor to its weakening and to the spread of awareness against it across the globe. (The dictatorship eventually fell about half a year later, during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, in which Greece failed to provide significant assistance to Cyprus or even protect its own interests.)

The spirit of the university's revolutionaries as well as the general hardship Greece went through in those seven years were the inspiration for a lot of great artists, particularly poets and musicians, and birthed numerous classic Greek songs. Below are four of my favourite ones, from the many that became symbols of this era, and are today sung by school choirs across the country!

Ὀταν σφίγγουν το χέρι - When they clench their fist

Ο Δρόμος - The Road

Θα σημάνουν οι καμπάνες - The bells will toll

Είμαστε δυο - We are two

Lyrics of the last one in English:

We are two, we are two, it's eight o'clock, turn off the light, the guard knocks, they'll come again at night one in the front, one in the front, and the rest will be following him, then silence and what follows is the usual again. They hit twice, they hit thrice, they hit one thousand thirteen times, you are hurting, I am hurting too but who is hurting the most, only time will tell.

We are two, we are three, we are one thousand thirteen, we ride the times, in time, in rain blood thickens in the wound and the pain turns into a nail. (x2)

The avenger, the saviour, we are two, we are three, we are one thousand thirteen.

On this day, 20 July 1925, Frantz Omar Fanon, psychiatrist, revolutionary and pioneering anti-colonialist theorist was born in the French colony of Martinique. Fanon served in the Free French Army during World War II in North Africa, and like many Black colonial troops, experienced racism. Living in Algeria he supported the independence movement until he was forced to leave the country, at which point he became an ambassador for the Algerian National Liberation Front. His seminal works include 'Black Skin, White Masks' 'The Wretched of the Earth', and focused not just on the politics and economics of colonialism but also its internal and psychological effects. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9275/frantz-fanon-born https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=664955625677656&set=a.602588028581083&type=3