Today (Sept 25) in History:
1868: Michael Bakunin and friends establish the 'International Alliance of Social Democracy' as a splinter group at the meeting of the 'League for Peace and Freedom' in Berne Switzerland.
1870: The Marseilles Commune announces the abolition of the state and all debt.
1919: Anarchists, in cooperation with Left Socialist Revolutionaries, bomb the Moscow headquarters of the Communist Party in response to continued repression and murder of members of both the anarchists and the Left SRs on the part of the Bolsheviks. A job done poorly as the Communists later go on to slaughter 25 million ordinary Russians once the supply of political opponents runs out.
1960: Fourth Conference of the Situationalist International. Besides adopting the "Statement on Madness' they spend their everyday life in electing a central committee.
1962" US backed coup in the Dominican Republic overthrows mildly leftist president Juan Bosch.
1977:Anti-apartheid organizer Steven Biko is buried in South Africa after being murdered by the police during detention. A little quote from Steve,
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
1999: The 'Friends of the Modern School', a collection of alumni and others meet at Rutger's University. The Modern School movement was founded in many countries after the judicial murder of Francisco Ferrer (Jan 10, 1859-Oct. 12, 1909) by the authorities in Barcelona. He was falsely accused of being part of a "plot" during the 'Semana Tragica' in Catalonia that year. The events of the 'Tragic Week' led to the creation of the Spanish CGT. For more on Ferrer see http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/ferrer/ferrer.html . For more on the American Modern School Movement see 'A History of the Stelton Modern School' at http://www.talkinghistory.org/stelton/stelton.html and 'The Modern School Collection' at http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/modern_school/modern.shtml .
As a little aside on a past visit to Barcelona I discovered the monument to Ferrer on the way up to Montjuis. It's a little bit damaged but still standing after decades of Francoism. It has an appropriate anti-clerical quote on its base. Modern Barcelona; where public transportation hubs have been named after anarchist Juan Peiro and there is an 'Avenida Durruti'. The Catalans have named their Olympic Stadium after Companys, but they aren't above adding anarchist names in their nose thumbing at the government in Madrid.
2006:Nothing at all happened today. Time to go to sleep already.
Molly