Sacco and Vanzetti
DeWaarheid.nu - 16.08.2002 23:29
Sacco and Vanzetti fought for a society without the state, without the church, without capitalism - a classless society where everyone can live free - at a time when the state was declaring war against any foreigner who dared to express such beliefs.
Today we are fighting for the same things: An end to the "war on terrorism." An end to the death penalty. An end to borders that keep people out but let multinational capitalists go wherever they please.
Who were Sacco and Vanzetti?
Aug. 23rd is the 75th anniversary of the judicial murders of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Two Italian-born anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti were wrongfully convicted of murder and executed by the State of Massachusetts. They were the most famous victims of the "Red scares" - a hysterical witch-hunt against anarchists and "reds" that led to the deaths and deportations of hundreds of immigrants, brought the Police State to America, and launched the long and vicious career of J. Edgar Hoover!
Today, very little has changed!
Hundreds of immigrants sit in "detention centers" without trial or charges, rounded up after Sept. 11 for the crime of being Muslim. Hundreds of prisoners, mostly people of color, still sit on death rows around the US. Escalating police violence greets worldwide mass protests against corporate globalization. Meanwhile, Bush and Ashcroft prepare an unprecedented assault on civil rights in the name of "homeland security."
It took the state seven years to kill Sacco and Vanzetti. Their cause was supported around the world by such persons as Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells, Edna St. Vicent Millay, and George Bernard Shaw. But mostly they were supported by an anarchist movement that refused to bow down to state violence.
Sacco and Vanzetti - two immigrant workers who dared to defy the state - are alive! Labour, environmentalists, anti-imperialists, feminists, revolutionaries, and people of all races and classes are coming together today to stop the arrogant power-grab by our business and government elites. In Seattle. In Bolivia. In Soweto. In sweatshops from Brooklyn to London.
The state is still determined to control us. But we will not be governed!
"I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian; I have suffered more for my family and for my beloved than for myself; but I am so convinced to be right that if you could execute me two times, and if I could be reborn two other times, I would live again to do what I have done already."
- Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1927
Events in America:
Thurs., Aug. 22nd, 7pm: Symposium, on the connections between Sacco and Vanzetti and today's struggles. At St. Joseph's Church, 371 Avenue of the Americas (corner of Washington Place).
Fri., Aug. 23rd, 4pm: Rally and memorial for Sacco and Vanzetti, Union Square at 14th Street.
ww-youth
|
