Hey Mrs. B, Google This: "Lorena" and "Bobbitt."

The AP is reporting that the 72-year-old billionaire conservative Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has demanded that his 52-year-old wife apologize to him, publicly, for saying that she was going to divorce him for screwing around on her.

"Veronica will have to publicly apologize to me. And I don't know if that will be enough," Berlusconi was quoted in an Italian daily on Monday.

Mrs. Berlusconi, Veronica Lario, is a 52-year-old former actress, and she just publicly stated that she will divorce her husband because of his flirtations with other women.

Hey Mrs. B, Google this: Lorena and Bobbitt.

May 4, 1970: Four Dead in Ohio (Kent State)

(Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by John Filo of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of student Jeffrey Miller, who had been shot dead by the National Guard at Kent State, Ohio.)

In the spring of 1970, despite massive nationwide marches, demonstrations, teach-ins, protests, letter-writing, petitioning of the government and demands from the citizens that the U.S. War Against Vietnam be ended and the troops be brought home, Richard Nixon decided to expand the war by starting a war against another country, Cambodia. When the nation learned that the war had been expanded, and the United States was attacking Cambodia, all hell broke loose all across the country.

(National Guard with riot gear, rifles up, bayonettes in fixed position, ready to "confront" unarmed college students in anti-war demonstrations at Kent State, Ohio).

Students from law schools, colleges, high schools and junior high schools walked out of their classrooms and gathered on their campuses and in the streets to protest the war. Not only students and hippies marched in the streets, but also mothers, fathers, children, car-dealers, veterans, CPAs were out demanding that this illegal, immoral, disastrous war be ended.

The response of the Republicans who were in charge was to get tough and send in the National Guard to any area where there was any possibility of a disturbance of the peace through peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, mass rallies or otherwise. The National Guard has never been so dispersed in modern times among the civilians, told to raise their weapons against the citizens of this country, in such a broad manner, for the purpose of preventing the citizens from protesting the actions of the national government. If anyone wonders how Fascism would come to this country, it would likely start by the government turning the National Guard against the people of their own communities such as happened in 1970.

(Kent State students being gassed by National Guard - streams show cannisters being lobbed at students)

One college which had protests and demonstrations and teach-ins and sit-ins was Kent State in Ohio. The National Guard was sent in and told to disperse the students (although they went to school there, and there was no legitimate reason they should not or could not have been there). But the National Guard nonetheless went in and ordered all the students to leave.

(Kent State students, "armed" only with their bookbags, teen-agers, almost still children, after being shot and killed by the National Guard which had been sent to their college to stop them from publicly protesting against the Nixon government.)

The National Guard, in full riot gear, rifles up, bayonnettes in a fixed and ready position, began moving on the students in one long line, shoving them back, yelling, and threatening. Chaos was the inevitable result. Then the National Guard began lobbing cannisters of tear gas into the middle of the crowd of students, blinding the students, causing a stampede with some shoved to the ground. Some of the students picked up rocks and threw them at the National Guard.

As the students moved back, away from the line of the National Guard, the National Guard also began to retreat but stopped at one point, turned, faced the retreating students. Someone in the National Guard gave the clear order to "Fire," and the National Guard fired directly into the crowd of unarmed students -- 67 shots in total. Four students were killed. No one was ever held accountable. This was murder.

Kent State was followed by police shootings ten days later at another college named Jackson State, in Mississippi, where African-American students demonstrating against the war were shot, two killed and 12 wounded. There was also a shooting by the National Guard-occupied campus at the University of California in Santa Barbara, where one student was killed.

Neal Young wrote the song "Ohio" ("Four Dead in Ohio") as a tribute to the murdered students and a rallying cry for the anti-war movement:

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Occasionally the Upper Classes, By Mistake, Produce An Interesting Person.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's father was named James. James had a child with his first wife, and named that child James (nicknamed Rosy Roosevelt). Rosy Roosevelt was the much-older half-brother of FDR. Rosy Roosevelt married Helen Astor and had two children, one named Tadd. Tadd was therefore FDR's nephew, although the two were very close in age.

Tadd, following the pre-set footsteps of the Roosevelt and Astor family lines, went to Harvard for his college studies. He did not graduate, however, instead leaving due to some scandal. He moved to New York, married a Hungarian prostitute, and was completely disowned by his father and his father's family.

Tadd inherited from his mother, from the Astor family, but never touched any of that inheritance. He remained married to the lady from Hungary for 40 years, until his wife's death. When he died, he left his entire estate, including the inheritance from the Astor family, to the Salvation Army.

The basic information is from a footnote in Jonathan Alter's remarkable book The Defining Moment, about FDR.

Women: Stop Begging Men, And Stop Apologizing To Men.

I just saw this video below, created around a speech given by Malcolm X titled "Stop Begging White Men, And Stop Apologizing To White Men." Malcolm X taught black people in this country that they needed to clean up their own act, stop engaging in the "vices" that are made available to them, engage in a critical analysis of why white men brainwash black people into believing they are stupid, dishonest, and ugly, discover their own history because it is erased by the white men, and start feeling proud of who they are.

When I was watching this, it occurred to me that every single thing he said also applied to women. Women in history are simply erased, their contributions are ignored, their art and literature and music is triviliazed, they are excluded from the "official" version of everything that has happened, other than when the woman is the femme fatale, and two men decide to go to war because they each want her. But for all the rest, the women who hold up half the world, make half the sacrifices, do well-more than half the work, they are eliminated from history. It is as if they never existed.

Today's modern woman spends much of her time begging for opportunity, working twice as hard and getting half the money, settling for crumbs, and apologizing for not being a Playboy centerfold. The attacks are constant: get breast implants, carve up your nose, get a bigger or smaller butt, work out more, don't eat, smile smile smile. While putting in a 60-hour week. And be obedient: the first commandment. Be obedient to your father, husband, pastor, boss, all men.

No wonder young girls have no self-confidence, no sense of self-esteem. For all they know, no other women has ever accomplished, ever achieved, ever done anything of merit or worth, so the hill seems quite steep, almost impossible to climb.

Of course Malcolm X was assassinated for speaking these truths. Maybe that's exactly why we should go back and give a listen.

May 1: International Workers' Day and The Haymarket Massacre

(Newspaper accounts)

In 1884, a labor organization in the U.S. (predecessor to the AFL) decided to organize workers around the demand for an 8-hour day (instead of the 12, or 14-hour days which were the regular working hours for most American workers). They planned to spend 2 years educating and organizing workers around this issue and then, on May 1, 1886, hold a nationwide strike to demand the 8-hour day as well as other rights for working people.

As it turns out, in Chicago, the workers at a plant owned by McCormick were on strike right before May 1, 1886, came around. The company owner had replaced all the workers with scabs, and locked out the regular workers. One evening when the scabs left work, the regular workers met them and there were fights and skirmishes. The police sided with the business owner, and shot and killed several of the workers.

(Drawing of police shooting workers)

This was followed immediately by the planned labor demonstration on May 1, 1886, and 80,000 people in Chicago marched for labor rights exactly as the organizers had planned. The local rich people and business owners were horrified at the idea that they might be stopped from using their workers as slave labor, forcing them to work however many hours that they demanded. So the local business owners demanded that the police get tough on the labor organizers, and shut down their efforts to organize to demand the 8-hour day.

The labor and other political organizers called for a mass meeting on May 4 to protest the police killing of workers on strike at McCormick. The meeting was scheduled to be held in the Chicago haymarket. A large crowd gathered in the street to hear the speakers for the meeting, but rain began to fall. Towards the end of the meeting, 200 local police massed on one end and began demanding that the workers break up immediately. Just then, somebody threw a bomb right in the middle of where the police were standing. The police panicked and began firing at random into the crowd of workers, killing several workers. Several police were also killed, one from the bomb and the rest supposedly by friendly fire (in their panic, they shot their own people by mistake).

The right-wing and the business owners seized on this incident, lied about what had really happened, began calling it "The Haymarket Riot" to suggest that workers who try to organize for their rights are all crazed bomb-throwing gun-shooting lunatics, and used the fear they created to crack down on labor unions and organizations across the country.

Because of this effort by the right-wing, the push for an 8-hour day was ended in its tracks. The 8-hour day did not become an official part of American workers' rights until fifty years later, in 1935.

(The Haymarket gathering)

Seven labor organizers in the Chicago area including Albert Parsons, including people who had not even been present at the Haymarket that night, including people who had no involvement in the meeting, were prosecuted in bogus show-trials. The prosecution's theory was that labor organizers were responsible for any violence that happened at a labor rally because, by encouraging working people to stand up for their rights, they were essentially encouraging violence. It was a disgusting and disgraceful misuse of our criminal injustice system. The real point of the trial was to shut down the efforts of the labor movement, and give a fierce warning to workers everywhere that if they stood up for their rights, they would be murdered by the state. There was never any evidence introduced at the trial, or later, to show that any of these 7 (later called the "Haymarket Martyrs") had any involvement with the bomb, or ever did anything to encourage violence.

On June 26, 1894, Governor John Peter Altgeld of Illinois found that the trial of the Haymarket Market Martyrs had been grossly unfair, and he pardoned all seven of the defendants. It did no good to the five who were already dead: Parsons, Spies, Fischer and Engel had already been hanged, and Lingg supposedly committed suicide in his cell.

(The hanging).

In 1889, the AFL sent a delegate to the international labor conference in Paris, to urge that May 1 of each year thereafter be celebrated as a day of labor solidarity. That proposal was adopted, and May 1 is considered International Workers' Day or Labor Day, an official holiday, for most nations in the world. Except the United States, which did not want to encourage working people to remember the history of labor struggles. So our Labor Day is in September and commemorates nothing more than having a bar-be-que before the kids start back to school.

Monument to the Haymarket Martyrs:
http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/haymkmon.htm

The Irish (Celtic) Holiday Of Bealtaine

Bealtaine (or Beltane) is the Gaelic name for both the month of May and a festival that traditionally took place throughout Ireland on the first day of May. The festival was also celebrated in Scotland and Wales.

Beltane marks the beginning of the summer season in Ireland. At the end of the day on May 1, the communities would light a big bonfire on top of a hill, all across Ireland. The bonfires were lit to drive out evil spirits and cleanse the community to prepare for the joyous days of summer and hopefully a bountiful harvest in the fall. All of the residents of the community would bring their own torch to the bonfire to get new fire, take it home, and re-light their own hearths as a symbol of a new beginning. Because the festival involved lighting fires, the first day of May was called "Laa Buidhe Bealtaine (Bright May Day).

The tradition of lighting bonfires continues in parts of Ireland and Scotland, and among some groups in the Irish diaspora.

Another part of the festival was the hanging of Mayflowers, or flower arrangements, on the doors and windows of the homes, and the erection of a May bush which was decorated with flowers and ribbons (similar to May poles).





Here is a video of a recent Beltane celebration.

It's May! It's May! The Lusty Month of May!